


Book 3: Distortion

by JayaLynne



Series: The Shape of Perception [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27434068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayaLynne/pseuds/JayaLynne
Summary: After Wedge and Iella get attacked at their apartment, Corran realizes his ability to perceive threats in the Force has been diminished. With Luke away on a diplomatic trip for Leia, Corran is obligated to accept assistance from Brianna again. (39 ABY) (Completed with Chapter 6 and Epilogue)
Series: The Shape of Perception [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1929682
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Corran watched Wedge carefully as they walked back to his and Iella's apartment. Wedge had been very quiet. Corran couldn't blame him. He could sense Wedge was angry and frustrated. Corran really never had stopped to consider how the past forty years had been such a secret burden on Luke. Hard, yes. But never such a struggle that it had taken such a negative toll on Luke's mental health.

Corran followed Wedge down the hall as they got off the elevator. Wedge and Iella lived in a modest, but nice building in a nice, upper section of Coruscant, close to Iella's office at the New Republic Directorate of Intelligence. As a senior assistant director, her colleagues had often chided her for not living in a more secure building, but she argued that modest, anonymous living was more secure than making a spectacle of security. Corran reminded her once that she was married to one of the New Republic's most famous military officers, if not _the_ most famous, and therefore anonymity didn't really exist. He didn't win the argument.

As they approached the door, Corran felt a sudden spike in panic from Wedge. In what felt like slow motion, he looked up, and he saw a large projectile come barreling down the hall at them. Corran grabbed Wedge by the shoulders and dropped, dragging Wedge down with him. The projectile whooshed over them and careened into a wall several meters behind them, rocking the building. Corran put his hand on Wedge's shoulder as they twisted around to look at the wreckage. "Are you okay?"

"What the hell was that?"

"Dunno," Corran said. "Came out of nowhere." _Why didn't I sense it quicker?_

A couple meters in front of them, the apartment door flew open and Iella stepped out, blaster in hand. "What was _that?_ "

Corran held up his hand and motioned for her to stay inside. She took one step back. He noticed Wedge was looking at him expectantly. Corran glanced around the hallway as he let the Force stretch out from himself. He couldn't sense any more immediate danger. He pushed himself up and offered Wedge a hand up. "I...think that's it," he said, still scanning the hallway.

"That's _what_?" Iella said.

"I mean, I don't think there's any other danger," Corran said. He led Wedge back into the apartment and Iella shut the door.

"Then why are you still looking around?"

"I'm just...checking," Corran said.

Iella was unsatisfied. She turned to Wedge. "Where have _you_ been?"

"Just getting coffee," Wedge said. "Can you put the blaster away?"

"We don't know what that was," she said.

"There's been construction going on in the next section for a week," Wedge said. "It probably came from there."

"I'm calling." Iella flipped the blaster's safety back on and walked over the communications console.

Wedge looked at Corran and shook his head. Corran shrugged. They had both known Iella long enough to know she wasn't going to let something like _that_ go. Wedge stepped in closer. "What was that?" he whispered.

Corran shrugged again. "I honestly don't know. It really did come out of nowhere."

"You don't _sense_ anything else?"

Corran shook his head. "Nothing." He frowned slightly. "I should have sensed it quicker. But," he gave Wedge a sheepish look, "guess I was thinking about other stuff."

Wedge gave him a light slap on the arm. "Well, that's okay."

Iella appeared next to them. "What are you two conspiring about now?"

"Nothing," they said.

Iella snorted. "You two are the worst liars."

"Did you talk to the construction people?" Wedge asked.

"Yes."

"And?"

Iella crossed her arms. "They _said_ it was them. They said they were going to send some kind of security team over here to ask questions and investigate."

"Well, there you go," Wedge said.

"You look unsatisfied," Corran said.

"Are _you_ satisfied?" Iella asked.

Corran hesitated. "I'm not sensing anything dangerous."

"That's not what I asked."

"I can stay for a few minutes, if you want."

"Also not what I asked."

Truthfully, Corran was unsatisfied too. He couldn't put his finger on why. It was probably his CorSec training kicking in. It was rare for that to be so mismatched with what he could sense in the Force. Usually the two complemented each other. "I don't have a good reason to be unsatisfied," he said.

"Fine, don't answer my question."

"I'll stay for a few more minutes."

"Fine." Iella waved him off and went to look out the window at the construction site.

"She's been a bit jumpy since we came back," Wedge said. "Don't worry about it."

"Yeah." In a way, Corran couldn't blame Iella. They never did figure out how Cami's nav system had gotten hacked or who Vir-Azmun was. Corran sat on the couch and waited. After about ten minutes, nothing else had happened and no one had shown up.

"You don't have to stay," Wedge said. "Mirax is probably wondering where you are."

"All right," Corran said, getting up. "Call me if you need anything. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, first thing," Wedge said.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" Iella asked.

"We're just getting coffee with Tycho, Wes, and Hobbie," Wedge said. "Relax." Iella frowned and went back to the window. Wedge walked Corran to the door. "First thing tomorrow."

"Right. Call me if you need anything else tonight." Corran made his way out of the building to the outside level of the lobby, and started heading home, passing by more apartments, shops, restaurants, and dedicated "green" spaces. Corran didn't live that far, though anywhere someone could walk or take public transit to in an hour was considered "close" on Coruscant. Jaina lived in this area too.

"Corran!"

Speaking of whom. Corran turned around and waved. "Hi Jaina. What brings you out tonight?"

"Oh, just out for a walk," she said. "You?"

"I was just at Wedge and Iella's apartment," he said. "Wedge and I got coffee and I walked back with him."

"Oh good! How is he feeling?"

"Still a bit tired, but otherwise fine." It was true, at least with regard to recent events. Corran wondered how much Jaina knew about Luke's state of mind. Probably not much. She hadn't had much contact with Luke in the past ten years either. "We're getting coffee with Tycho and Wes and Hobbie tomorrow."

"Oh, that sounds like fun."

"Yeah, he hasn't gotten out much so -" Corran stopped. He frowned. He was feeling something in the Force. It wasn't a threat. Sort of. But it was Wedge and Iella and they were concerned or agitated or anxious.

"Corran? You okay?"

He had to get back. "Yeah, look, I gotta go, I'll see you later." He'd been almost halfway home. He turned and started running.

As he finally came back up on the entrance to the lobby, he could just make out a small group of people standing outside. It was starting to get dark out, and the outdoor lights hadn't fully come on yet. He slowed down. He could see Wedge and Iella standing with what appeared to be a group of security personnel. Iella was definitely the one who was agitated. "Hi," he said as he walked up. "Is there a problem here?" He could feel a palpable wave of relief from Wedge and Iella.

One of the security team, Corran counted six, turned to look at him. "No, no problem. We're just here conducting an investigation. Do _you_ have a problem?"

"That depends. Are you from the construction company?"

"We're local security. Construction company asked us to come have a look. Who are you?"

Corran thought carefully before answering. He still wasn't getting any sense of threat through the Force, but his CorSec senses were firing on all thrusters. And he could tell Iella was having none of this. _Two out of three wins._ "Hal," he said.

The team leader exchanged a glance with one of his subordinates. "Were you here when the projectile went loose?"

"I was."

"Great!" he said. "We just need to escort you all out of the area to our office to ask some questions."

"We don't need to go anywhere," Iella said.

"You can ask us questions right here," Corran said.

"Sorry, district policy," team leader. "Also, I'll need to take your weapons. Not allowed in our office."

"Weapons? What weapons?" Corran looked over at Wedge and Iella. Neither of them had blasters.

"That," team leader said, pointing to Corran's right hip.

Corran's hand dropped. His lightsaber. "Nah," he said, shaking his head. "You can't have that."

"Sorry sir, district policy."

"I'd like to see that in writing."

"I can show you the policy back in the office."

"If you ask us questions right here, it won't matter." Corran noticed he had moved more directly between the security team and Wedge and Iella. He didn't want a fight if they really were district security. But his CorSec senses were telling him that was less and less likely.

"I'm sorry sir, we really can't let you stay here."

Out of the corner of his eye, Corran saw one of the other team members start to pull a blaster. He caught a sudden spike of alarm from Wedge and Corran shot out his left hand, catching and absorbing the bolt with the Force. Corran used the energy to fling the blaster away and lit his lightsaber. "Okay, I think we're done with the fake security bit here." The rest of the team drew their blasters.

Just then, a large construction droid came lumbering around the corner directly at the security team. They briefly lowered their blasters. "Where'd that come from?"

"Run this way!"

Corran didn't wait. He disengaged his lightsaber, grabbed Wedge and Iella and ran. As they passed the droid, it suddenly toppled over toward the security as they fired more shots. Behind the droid was Jaina, with her arms outstretched. "Thought you could use a distraction," she said. "This way."

They followed Jaina, as they ran partway through the section taking several turns. Finally Iella stopped them.

"Hang on, hang on here," she said. "What the hell is going on here?" She pointed at Corran. "You said you didn't think -"

"I know, I know, I know what I said," Corran said. "I didn't think there was. I think, I don't know, something's wrong with my sense of threat perception."

"Your what?"

"My threat perception. In the Force. Something is off."

"I don't know what that means."

"I, well," Corran didn't know how to explain.

"Okay, never mind," she said. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?" Wedge asked.

"My office."

* * *

Wedge looked around as the group made its way through the New Republic Directorate of Intelligence building lobby and up to the executive suite offices. He'd been in the lobby and some of the other open banquet spaces before, and some other low level meeting rooms, but never up to Iella's executive office. She hadn't been that highly placed when he was still on active duty, and after he retired, there was just no need for him to be in those spaces. Not that he wanted to be. He'd spent so much of his 20s and 30s and 40s waist deep in military and intelligence operations that he was just as glad to be free of it. Though, if he were to be entirely honest, he did miss it. Rarely.

They stepped off an elevator onto one of the executive office floors where a Rodian was occupying a night watch desk. "Hi Elim," Iella said.

"Good evening Director Wessiri! You're here late tonight."

"Do you know who the night security commander is on duty?"

Elim clicked a few times on his computer screen. "Commander Bollick, ma'am."

"Excellent. Call him and tell him to call me on my private line in my office as soon as possible. Tell him it's urgent."

"Yes ma'am… Ma'am!" Elim called out as Iella started to lead them toward the office. "I'll need to verify your guests."

"My guests?" Iella pointed to each one of them in turn. "Let's see, Retired General Wedge Antilles, Jedi Master Corran Horn, and Major Jaina Solo, Starfighter Command. What else do you need?"

Elim's eyes widened as his jaw dropped just a little. "Uh, you're good ma'am, thank you. I'll make that call for you."

"Thanks Elim, you're the best!" Iella said as she punched in her key code to the main door. She led them down another hallway.

"That was convenient," Jaina muttered.

"You have that kind of pull when you're an assistant director," Wedge said.

"She's _always_ been like that," Corran said.

"I can hear you," Iella said as she coded into another door. She let them in and then turned her attention on Corran. "Explain."

"I don't really have anything to explain."

"Try me."

Corran sighed. "I don't know. Something about my threat perception is off."

"I don't know what that means."

"I can't really explain it," Corran said. "Normally, I can sense or anticipate threats through the Force. Something wasn't working this time."

"You must be catching something," Wedge said. "That projectile didn't actually hit us and you came all the way back to the building after you left."

Corran shook his head. "Yes, but what I was catching was slow. Not how it should be. And when I was arguing with that one supposed security person, my sense of threat _should_ have been spiking. It wasn't."

Wedge looked at Jaina. "Are you having a problem?"

"I don't think so," Jaina said. "I guess I wasn't paying that much attention though. Corran ran off after we were talking, so I assumed he was headed back to your apartment. I followed him." She shrugged.

"This is not helpful," Iella said. Her communications console chirped. "Hold that thought." She pressed the button to answer the call. "Wessiri."

A hologram of a Mon Calamari male appeared. "Director Wessiri, Commander Bollick here. Your night watch said you had an urgent issue?"

Iella sat down. "Yes, thank you for calling me quickly. There appears to be a fake district security team operating in the vicinity of section 2124, using a local construction operation as cover. They targeted my apartment building. Is that something you can look into?"

Command Bollick nodded. "Yes, I think so. Can you give me more details?"

Wedge listened to Iella recount the last couple of hours. He noted she omitted Corran and Jaina's Force use. Which made sense. If Corran couldn't explain it to her, she certainly wouldn't be able to explain it to anyone else.

Command Bollick nodded again as Iella finished. "Yes, we can certainly put a team on that right away. You and your husband are secure?"

"Yes, we're here in my office."

"Excellent. And Director, I realize this isn't the best moment to say I told you so."

"Then don't."

"But, this might be an excellent opportunity for the two of you to move to a more secure location."

Iella scowled. "I like my apartment."

"Director, it obviously isn't as secure as it needs to be."

"I don't have time to go apartment hunting."

"You know," Jaina broke in. "There's an apartment down the hall from my parents that's been empty for years. You could move there. Doesn't get much more secure."

Commander Bollick turned slightly to get a better look at Jaina. "Who are your parents?"

"Ambassador Leia Organa Solo and Retired General Han Solo," she said with more than a little pride in her voice. "They live in the Senate Apartments building."

Commander Bollick quickly recovered from his surprise. "She's right, Director, doesn't get much more secure than that."

"I don't have time to supervise the move of my household goods," Iella said.

"Mirax could do it," Corran said as Iella turned to glare at him. "She knows your stuff better than anyone."

"And my mom is out, but my dad could supervise on that end," Jaina said.

"And," Wedge added, "just think how much bigger your home office could be in an apartment like that."

"Ooh, yeah, my mom has one," Jaina said. "There's a whole conference table in there. It's huge."

Iella turned reluctantly thoughtful. "Well, I don't need a whole conference table. But something bigger would be nice…" She looked Wedge. He nodded. She sighed and turned back to Commander Bollick. "Oh all right. We'll move. How long is this going to take?"

"If you have your supervisors contact me directly, we can get started right away," he said. "We'll have to get approval from building security. That won't be hard. Moving everything and getting the space swept and set up will probably take about twenty-four hours, if you don't mind staying in your office."

"No, we're fine here," Iella said. She sighed again. "Thank you for your help."

"Director, you have made me very happy today. Bollick out."

Iella turned around and pointed to the other side of the room. "Okay, go make your calls, open lines are over there," she said to Corran and Jaina. "And mind your language."

She stood up and stretched and Wedge came around the desk. He rubbed her arms. "I don't like this," she said.

"We've been having this conversation about moving on and off for years."

"I don't like running."

"Being more cautious isn't running."

Iella snorted. "The only person I know who's less cautious than you is Corran."

"Look, it'll be great," Wedge said. "You'll have your office, Leia has her office. Winter is over there all the time. The three of you can have a little in-home spy circle."

"Now you're just mocking me," Iella said, but she was finally smiling.

Wedge grinned. "No, never." He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

"We're all set," Corran said as he and Jaina came back over.

"Good," Iella said. "Back to your issue."

"I don't know what to tell you," Corran said. "I should be able to filter threats in the Force, and this time, it didn't happen."

"Well, there must be someone you can ask."

"Well, yeah…" He glanced at Wedge.

_Always the same person,_ Wedge thought. That conversation seemed like ages ago.

"Can you call Yavin?" Iella asked.

Corran glanced at Wedge again. "Yeah, I'll call," Wedge said. "Can I use the open line?"

"Doesn't Yavin have a secure line?"

"Probably, but I don't know the number."

Iella grumbled. "Fine, use the open line."

Wedge put the number into the key pad and it started to connect. "Oh, you know, I just remembered," he said. "Luke's not even there."

"He can't possibly be the only person to ask," Iella said.

"Well, yeah, maybe -" The call connected.

"Hey ho."

Great. Brianna. "Hey, Brianna -"

"Oh, it's you!" she said. "What number is this? Where are you calling from?"

"This is Iella's office line."

"Iella? Oh, that's your wife, right? Office line, huh?"

"Yes," Wedge said. "She's an assistant director. At the Directorate of Intelligence."

"Really?! That sounds fancy and important. I did not know this."

"I guarantee I've told you that."

"You have?"

"Yes, I have."

"Oh." Brianna smirked a little. "Still pretty cool. What's up?"

"We were looking for Luke, but I just remembered he isn't there," Wedge said.

"Yeah, he's off on some kind of diplomatic something something gazpacho, I don't even know, I wasn't really paying attention."

"Right." Wedge glanced behind him. "Is ah, Kyp around?" Corran and Jaina wrinkled their noses.

"Kyp is out," Brianna said, "on other paid labor."

"Oh. Well, just as well," Wedge said. "Well, maybe you can help us."

"Fabulous! I'm thrilled to be your third choice. How may I assist you today?"

Wedge resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "We're having a problem. Well, Corran is having a problem."

Brianna leaned over to look at Corran. "What did you do now?!"

"I didn't _do_ anything."

"Oh, so it's your usual problem."

"I -" Corran glanced at Wedge. The insult had clearly hit home.

"It's a _Force_ related problem," Wedge said before the topic could get derailed. "What did you say, a problem filtering threats in the Force?"

Brianna raised an eyebrow. "Threat perception problem?"

"Yes," Corran said. "I'm not picking up things I should be perceiving as threats."

"Hmm." Brianna leaned back in her chair. "Explain."

Wedge watched Brianna carefully as Corran walked back through the last few hours. Her frown kept getting deeper as he spoke. But at least she was paying attention.

Brianna tapped her fingers on her console as Corran finished. She looked at Jaina. "What about you, are you having that problem?"

"Not that I can tell. But I wasn't explicitly paying attention to that either."

"Hmm. Fascinating." She kept tapping the console.

"Any idea what that's about?" Wedge asked.

Brianna seemed to look Corran up and down for a moment. "Nope."

"Well, that's useful," Corran said.

Wedge was actually slightly disappointed. "Well, is there someone else -"

"What if," Brianna cut him off. "What if...hmmmmm. What if I just come hang out? Can I come hang out? You know what, I'm just gonna come hang out. Where are you? Oh, you're in the spy building, I can find that. Okay, look, here's what I'm gonna need you to do. I need all of you to stay where you are -"

"I have to go to work in the morning," Jaina said.

" _I have a real job!_ " Brianna said in a high pitched voice. "Okay, fine, you go to your real job, like a normal person. The rest of you," she pointed around at everyone, "need to stay put until I get there, cool? I'm gonna come hang out. You need anything else while I'm here?" She pointed at Wedge.

"No."

"Cool, I'll see you in a bit. Out." The call disconnected.

Wedge let out a long breath. He turned around to look at everyone. "Well. There you go."

Iella looked slightly horrified. "Is that _normal_?!"

"Nothing about her is normal," Jaina said.


	2. Chapter 2

Wedge stretched and sat up. He had slept far longer than he'd meant to. The previous day's events had worn him out more than he wanted to admit. He poured himself a cup of coffee from Iella's dispenser and looked around the empty office. Iella was likely at her usual string of morning meetings and Jaina had probably left for the Rogue Squadron bay hours ago. He didn't see Corran. He was eyeballing a nearby box of pastries when his communicator chirped. "Antilles."

"Wedge! It's Tycho."

"Well, I hope you're having a good morning, at least."

"I heard! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, we're all fine. How did you find out?"

"Winter. She heard it from Leia, who started asking building security a bunch of questions when she found out from Han that all your stuff was getting moved into the apartment down the hall from them."

"Ah. Of course."

"Everyone's okay though?"

"Yeah. Iella got some people at work to look into it."

"You don't sound all that confident about it."

"Well. I'm sure it'll be fine. There's just...more going on here, I think."

"Can I help?"

Wedge chuckled. "Last time I asked you to run around Coruscant for me, you ended up on trial for murder."

"Yeah, but no one thinks I'm a spy this time. What do you need?"

"I don't even know. Don't go looking for trouble. But, you know, if you happen to see some security people who look like they shouldn't be somewhere…"

"Got it."

"I mean it, don't get into any trouble."

"No, no, I got it. I'll check in with you tomorrow, okay?"

"All right. Thanks."

"You got it boss. Out."

Wedge sighed. Iella would be furious if she knew he just did that. He looked around again for Corran. He opened a side door to a large adjacent conference room. Corran was sitting at the table, very still, with his back to the door. Wedge hesitated. Luke never minded when Wedge sat with him while he was meditating. But he'd never done it to Corran.

"You can come in," Corran said.

Wedge sat down next to him. "Sorry. I didn't know if you were meditating or something."

"I wasn't. Well, I was kind of trying to, but I wasn't." Corran sighed. "I was trying to see if I could come up with some kind of answer to this before Brianna shows up."

Wedge grinned. "Afraid she might beat you to the answer?"

"What? No. She's just a kid."

"She's twenty-four," Wedge said. "That's about how old you were when you joined Rogue Squadron."

"Yeah, and I was a kid."

"I'm only a year older than you."

"She _acts_ like a kid," Corran said.

"She's smart and she's bored."

"There are plenty of things to do."

"We just gave her something to do." Corran gave him a skeptical look. Wedge changed the subject. "Talked to Mirax yet today?"

"A couple hours ago," Corran said. "She said they were just starting to pack up your apartment, but no issues so far. Is Iella back in yet? She was supposed to be getting briefed on anything about these fake security people."

"I didn't see her. Let's check."

Wedge and Corran walked into the main office just as Iella was coming in from the hall. "Oh good, you're up," she said.

"Learn anything new?" Corran asked.

"The Analysis Division is making some good progress on mapping out a small network of these fake security elements. Apparently some of the analysts think this is just a training drill because they think it's easy."

"What do you think?" Wedge asked.

"Well, it's obviously not a drill."

"But?"

Iella slid a datapad onto her desk. "They don't have any information on why we might have been targeted. The Collections Division has code names they are using for us before the reports go to the Analysis Division. No mention of future targets. No mention of anything Jedi related. Though, I'm _assuming_ these are related."

"I'd be surprised if they weren't," Corran said.

"Maybe they were targeting you and not us?" Wedge suggested.

"That's not a happy thought," Iella said. "Have you heard from Brianna? She knows she can't just walk up here, right? I'll have to go get her in the lobby."

"No, not -"

The office door dinged. Iella frowned and moved to open it. One the other side stood two human females. "Good afternoon Director," one of them said, "you have a visitor."

Brianna waved and smiled brightly. "Hi!"

The first woman, who Wedge assumed to be the day watch, moved aside and turned to Brianna. "It was my pleasure to meet you Master Jedi! Hopefully I can be of service again in the future!"

"Indeed, my friend, indeed!" Brianna handed her three small items out of her backpack. "Life is short, don't work too hard," she said as she gave the woman a small slap on the shoulder. The door closed as Brianna stepped inside.

"How did you get -?"

"Can I just tell you," Brianna interrupted Iella, "that you have horrible security in this building? Just horrible."

"How did you get up here!?" Iella said.

"Candy bribes,"

" _What_?"

"Candy bribes. Also, some name recognition didn't hurt. Are those pastries?" She dropped her backpack on a chair and walked over to the open box and took one. "All I had to do was say my name and people were falling all over themselves to let me go where I wanted. No one even asked for an ID or anything. Isn't that weird?"

"People trust Jedi," Iella said. "You shouldn't be abusing it."

"I'm not abusing anything. I'm just saying, I could be anybody, walking in here, like, 'I'm so and so Skywalker' and no one would even check. You don't think that's bad security? These are really good pastries, by the way."

"I know your father has put considerable effort into making sure people know the Jedi are the galaxy's protectors. You should respect that, at least."

Wedge saw Brianna's eyes narrow just slightly. "Really?" she said. "I'd be fascinated to know what conversations you've had about _that_ recently."

"Can we get back to why we're cooped up in this office please?" Wedge said before a fight could break out. Brianna knew perfectly well Iella and Luke had never had any such conversation, especially not recently. Iella had had fewer interactions with Luke in the past ten years than Corran. Brianna shrugged.

Iella took a moment before continuing. "We were just discussing," she said, "whether the fake security and Corran's issue are related."

"Oh, I'd bet half my candy stash on it," Brianna said. "And there's good candy in there, let me tell ya."

Wedge could tell Iella was fighting an eye roll. "And Wedge was wondering whether they were targeting Corran and not us," Iella said.

"Ah," Brianna said looking at Wedge. "An interesting proposition. Certainly can't be ruled out. I suppose we could send him around with some other people and test it. Anyone else know about this we can use?" She looked at Corran. "Explain the whole thing to me again? More detail this time."

Corran started his story again, with him and Wedge walking down the hallway in the apartment building. Brianna cut him off as he was describing the projectile. "Are you sure your threat perception went off?"

"I, yeah, I'm pretty sure sure it did," Corran said.

"Pretty sure? Okay, go on."

Corran threw Wedge an annoyed glance, but continued. He described waiting, leaving the building and running into Jaina before running back to the building. Brianna cut him off again. "Are you sure it went off the second time? Where is Jaina anyway? Oh yeah, she has a real job. So, I'm unclear. Did it go off or not?"

"Hang on a second," Iella said. "I don't understand what you mean by 'go off.' What is that?"

"Oh," Brianna said. "Just, you know, whether his threat perception sense got triggered. By threats."

"I don't know what that means," Iella said. Wedge could sympathize. Sometimes Luke had good analogies for how the Force worked, but he often struggled to explain it in ways Wedge could truly grasp without experiencing it himself.

Brianna turned on Corran. "Don't you explain anything to anyone?"

"Explaining the Force is kind of difficult," Corran said.

"If you lack imagination, maybe," Brianna said.

Corran was about to snap back at her when the doorbell chirped again. "Stop!" Iella said. She threw a quick glare at Brianna and opened the door. Wedge couldn't see who it was, but Iella motioned for Corran to join her.

Wedge walked up behind Brianna where she was pouring herself a cup of coffee. "Can you tone it down, please?" he whispered.

"That is not on the list of things I'm good at."

"You're not making a good impression."

"Also not on the list of things I'm good at."

"Brianna…" Her being obstinate wasn't going to help anyone.

Brianna turned around to look at him with her classic and unfailingly obnoxious expression that she was about to happily explain to you just how competent she actually was. "Do you know how long I wandered around in this building before I came up here?"

Fine. He'd play her game. "How long?"

"Three hours. You know what I was doing for three hours?"

"Why don't you tell me."

Brianna set her coffee down. "I walked all over this building trying to get _someone_ to engage me with a bit of skepticism. I wanted someone to challenge me. Because _then_ I could challenge the challenge. I wanted to see if someone would behave threateningly toward me. Because," she pointed to Corran, "we still don't know if his issue is just his issue. Right?" She shrugged. "I figured if someone would engage me, I could test it. But everyone just let me run around and do whatever I wanted. Which I genuinely do think is weird, by the way."

Wedge hung his head. "Why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

Brianna smiled. "Because, I was trying to provoke her too, for the same reason. Mostly the same reason. But you got in my way." Brianna picked her coffee cup back up. "I'm trying to get work done here and no one wants to cooperate."

Wedge sighed. Which seemed to be the normal state of affairs for dealing with Brianna. "You wear me out."

"You're welcome."

Wedge shook his head. "Never mind. You wanted to know who else knew about this. I told Tycho about this earlier. Sort of. Not many details. He'd already heard about some of it from Winter and Leia. He's walking around making some observations."

Briann gave him a skeptical look. "That sounds like a stupid idea. Who is this person?"

"Tycho. Celchu."

"Who's that?"

"You know who that is."

"Oh, that's one of your pilot people, right?" Wedge looked at her. "Isn't that Winter's boyfriend?"

"They're married."

"They are?!"

"You knew that."

"I'm actually fairly certain I did not know that part. Why didn't you bring that up earlier?" Wedge glanced back at Iella and Corran to make sure they weren't listening. "Ohhh," Brianna said with a grin. "You didn't _tell_ anyone you did that." She chuckled. "You're worse than my dad. 'I'm gonna go do this dumb thing and not tell anyone.' And you wanna tell me to tone it down? Man, get out with that nonsense."

"I'm just letting you know," Wedge said.

"Yeah, yeah. Stop doing dumb stuff. I tell my dad you're the smart one and he should listen to you."

"Right. Speaking of which -"

"Wedge." Iella motioned for him to come over.

"I'm just gonna assume I'm included," Brianna said, as they walked over.

"Wedge, this is Deputy Assistant Director Anton Kalick, of the Analysis Division. He's overseeing the analysts working on our issue. He just wanted to meet you."

Deputy Kalick extended a hand to Wedge. "General Antilles, my pleasure," he said as Wedge shook his hand. "Parts of your career are covered in intelligence courses, and your unique way of blending intelligence and operations was always an inspiration."

Wedge couldn't help feeling old again. "I uh, didn't realize they taught that," he said. "I'm glad people are able to learn from it though."

Deputy Kalick turned to Brianna. "Are you here helping out as well?"

Brianna started to open her mouth when Iella stepped in. "Anton, this is Brianna Skywalker. She's Luke Skywalker's daughter. She's here assisting Corran with some Jedi related matters."

"Oh, I see," he said. He gave her a quick look up and down and with a small smile said, "You don't look like a Jedi."

Brainna's face lit up and Wedge exchanged a quick, horrified glance with Iella. Wedge hoped Brianna had taken him seriously about making a good impression.

"Really?" she said. "How fascinating. I applaud your skepticism." She gave him a confident smile. "What does a Jedi look like?"

Deputy Kalick blinked in slight confusion. Wedge felt bad for him. "Well, I guess, they have the robes, right? The brown ones?"

"Ah, yes, the multi-layered style, usually light brown underneath, dark on top, wide belt, that's what you mean?" Brianna said.

"Yes, that's the one."

"Quite traditional." She pointed at Corran. "You have a set of robes like that?"

"Multiple sets," Corran said.

Brianna smirked. "How cliché." She turned back to Deputy Kalick. "Here's your Jedi history fun fact for the day. Under the Old Republic, the majority of male Jedi knights and masters wore exactly the type of robes you're thinking of. A few went with less traditional clothing, especially those with different body types. But among _female_ Jedi, the clothing was much more of a stylistic free-for-all. A few women chose the traditional brown robes, some chose that style in other colors. There was a wide variety of robes and cloaks of other styles and colors. Some women wore traditional clothing associated with their homeworld, and others simply wore whatever they deemed most comfortable to do their jobs."

Deputy Kalick nodded, clearly interested. Wedge felt relieved. Deputy Kalick gave Brianna another look. "They probably didn't wear denim pants and hooded sweatshirts though."

Brianna glanced down at her own street clothes and grinned. "Nah, you're probably right about that part."

Deputy Kalick chuckled. "You have a lightsaber though," he said, pointing to her hip.

"Ah, yes, indeed I do," Brianna said. "Here's your second fun fact for the day. Lots of Force users carry lightsabers and," she waggled her finger, "not all of them are Jedi."

Deputy Kalick's eyes widened a bit. "They're...not?"

"Oh no," Brianna said. "'Jedi' is only one Force training philosophy among many. There's also Sith - think Sheev Palpatine - multiple clans of Dathomiri Nightsisters, the Whills, the Massasii, _lots_ of others. But 'Jedi' is the word most people know, so it's often erroneously used as catch-all for all Force users. But this is wrong."

Deputy Kalick nodded. "That...actually sounds really interesting," he said. Wedge believed him. But he also looked a bit terrified at the idea of so many different Force wielders he'd never heard of.

"Isn't it?" Brianna said. "Force lore is fun. Some of it is a bit too mystical for my personal taste, but most of it is really interesting."

"Yes, well, I'll just let you all get back to work then," Deputy Kalick said. "Director, always a pleasure. General." He nodded at Wedge.

"Thanks, Anton, I'll talk to you later," Iella said. She shut the door behind him and turned to Brianna.

"This building is badly in need of some education," Brianna said.

"People are supposed to trust you," Iella said.

"How can you trust an institution you know nothing about?" Brianna said.

Iella frowned. Wedge jumped in again. "Can we get back on topic?"

"Sure," Brianna said. "What were we talking about?" She smiled at Corran. "Oh yeah, we were talking about how bad you are at explaining things." Corran tried to reply but Brianna ignored him and turned back to Iella. "So, let's do some Force basics here. What is the Force? The standard line everyone gets is, 'the Force is an energy field, that surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together'," she said, gesturing dramatically with each phrase.

"Like dark energy, like in physics?" Iella asked.

"In pervasiveness, yes, in function, no," Brianna said. "The Force is supposed to be everywhere, right? Between you, me, the tree, the rock, the ship, that's how the line goes. But in _function_ , think of it more like a conductive medium, like air or water or copper, pick your favorite. Everything has what is usually termed a 'presence' in the Force. And when I say 'everything' I mean _everything_. People, plants, animals, objects, but also _events_ and _intentions_. These 'presences' create what you can think of as ripples. They could be big ripples, small ripples, tall ripples, short ripples, fat ripples, skinny ripples. Everything - with modest exceptions - creates a ripple. These ripples then propagate _through_ the conductive medium that is the Force, which Force sensitive people can then pick up, or 'sense'."

"Ohhh," Iella said. She looked at Corran. "That actually makes sense to me." Corran shrugged.

"So," Brianna continued, pacing around, "when a person who is Force sensitive is first learning to engage with this medium in a deliberate way, what they get is this mass chaos of ripples. Just, ripple, ripple, ripple, ripple, everywhere. Because _everything_ creates a ripple. The next stage of this is learning how to _identify_ ripples. That's a tree, that's a rock, that's my friend, that's someone who's gonna punch me in the face, right? _Then_ you can move on to _filtering_ ripples. Do I need the tree? No. Do I need the rock? No. Do I need my friend? Probably. Do I need the person who's gonna punch me in the face? Almost certainly.

"Threat perception is a specific kind of filtering. Think of it like a passive sensor net. Things, in this case ripples, pass in and out all day long, and nothing happens. But when a specific type of ripple - a threat ripple - comes through, the sensor net is triggered, alerting the Force sensitive person, who can then, hypothetically do something about it." She put her hand on Corran's shoulder. "What we seem to have here, is a case where obvious threat ripples _ought_ to be triggering the sensor net, and are not." She looked at Corran. "Right?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Corran said.

"Why not?" Iella asked.

"Excellent question," Brianna said. "When I figure it out, I'll let you know."

"How big is the sensor net?" Iella asked.

Brianna shrugged. "Depends. One, it depends on how 'powerful' in the Force the person is, which is really just a composite measure of how innately Force sensitive you are and how much you practice. But it also depends on the kind of ripple. Is it close by or far away? Is it a small threat or a big threat? Is it directed at you, directed at someone else, or is it some general threat to the universe? Is it an immediate threat or some vague future intention of a threat? Lots of factors involved."

Iella nodded. "This is fascinating." She looked at Corran. "You need to work on your explanation skills."

* * *

Wedge leaned against the elevator wall feeling exhausted. The ride up to the floor Han and Leia lived on always seemed atrociously long. Part of the price of high rise and high security living, he supposed. But it had already been such a long day. They had stayed in Iella's office a while longer while she went to meetings and until they were told the apartment was ready for them. Jaina had met them for dinner in the Intelligence Directorate's cafeteria. Brianna interrogated her further on whether she'd noticed any problems in threat perception and Iella had asked more 'Force basics' questions. Wedge was glad Iella was so interested, though he couldn't help feeling a bit annoyed that she had never been interested enough before to ask Luke about those things. On the other hand, Brianna _was_ much better at explaining things. Brianna could be quite engaging when the topic was actually something she was interested in and she was getting good questions.

The elevator door opened into the hall. Han and Leia's apartment was about halfway down on the right. His and Iella's new apartment was at the far end on the left. There was an apartment directly across from Han and Leia's that was technically still in Luke's name, but he hadn't lived there since he'd started the academy on Yavin.

Jaina said goodnight and started to enter her parents' apartment while Brianna opened Luke's apartment.

"Hey."

Everyone turned around to look at Brianna.

She looked at Wedge. "Did he ever give you a key?"

Wedge blinked. "A key to what?"

"A key to this apartment."

"No."

"He didn't?"

"No."

"Oh." She turned around to go inside again.

Wedge suddenly remembered what she was talking about. "Hey," he said. She looked at him. " _You_ gave me a key."

"I did?"

"Yes, you did."

Brianna grinned. "Oh I did! I cheated! That's okay then carry on!" She went into the apartment and shut the door.

Wedge sighed. "What was that all about?" Iella asked.

"She gave me a key to that apartment, that's all," Wedge said.

"Why?" Corran asked.

"And when?" Jaina asked.

"It's kind of ridiculous," Wedge said, trying to put them off.

"Now I really want to know," Iella said.

Wedge relented. He looked at Jaina. "You remember when your mom's treasure box was made public and she and Luke had to give that senate testimony, nine years ago?"

"Yes."

"That was the same day R2 told us just just how involved he'd been in all of that." He looked at Corran. "You remember he came up to us while we were all standing in the lobby?"

"Sure," Corran said.

"I spent the afternoon and evening with them, mostly Luke," Wedge said. "I came up here the next morning looking for them. I knocked on the door, no one answered. Then I hear a voice behind me. 'Oh, they're not here.' I turn around and she's standing right by that door. Luke hadn't mentioned anything to me about her being here, so I didn't expect it. I said, 'What are you doing here?' She said, 'Well, technically I live here.' I said, 'Does your dad know you're here?' She said, 'No.' 'How did you get here?' 'On the shuttle.' 'Your dad's shuttle?' 'Uh huh.' I said, 'Did you _stow away_?' She grins and says, 'Uh huh.'"

"What? How old was she?" Iella asked.

"I don't know, fifteen, I think," Wedge said. "I said, 'Are you supposed to be here?' And she says, 'Well, if I was supposed to be here, I wouldn't have needed to stow away, would I?'"

Iella, Corran, and Jaina all started laughing. "I hate it when she does that," Jaina said.

Wedge continued. "Then she said to me, 'You got a key, right?' I said, 'A key to what?' She says, 'A key to this apartment.' I said, 'No.' She says, 'Why not?' I said, 'Why would I have a key to this apartment?' Then she looks at me like I'm stupid and said, 'Why would _you_ NOT have a key to this apartment?' I just looked at her and said, 'I don't have a key.' Then she rolled her eyes, called her father a delinquent, pulled me inside and gave me a key."

Iella, Corran, and Jaina kept laughing. "That is everything that Brianna is," Jaina said.

"What did Luke say when you told him?" Iella asked.

"Ah, I didn't," Wedge said.

" _You didn't_?!" Iella said. "You didn't tell him? Why not?"

Wedge shrugged. "He was busy."

"Wow," Corran said.

"I didn't want to get her in trouble," Wedge said.

"She never gets in trouble for _anything_ ," Jaina said.

"I figured if she could stow away once, she could do it again." Wedge shrugged again.

Iella nodded. "You know, I'm beginning to feel like I have a much better understanding of why she is the way she is."


	3. Chapter 3

Wedge stepped out into the hallway with a cup of coffee. The apartment was much nicer than even he had expected it to be. It was far too large for two people; but it was comfortable and much more modern than the other place had been. Having grown up barely middle class on Corellia, he almost felt embarrassed to be living in such luxury. But he was definitely glad to be here. Maybe he could convince Luke to come to Coruscant more often, now that he was right down the hall.

Corran, Mirax, and Iella were standing by the large floor to ceiling window at the end of the hall. Iella had come around quickly to the new apartment after she practically swooned over her new office space. She even had an idea to put a couch out here by the window. Wedge decided not to remind her how she'd fought against moving for years.

"Good morning," Iella said as she slipped her arm around his waist. "Slept in again, huh?"

"If I didn't sleep enough, I would have heard about that too," Wedge said.

"True, you would have," Iella said.

"What's that over there?" Mirax said.

Wedge looked where she was pointing. Off in the distance, across the Coruscant skyline, there looked to be a plume of smoke rising up between buildings. He nudged Corran. "Isn't that Starfighter Command?"

"Is it?" Corran said. "I guess I don't know exactly where we are, relative to everything else."

"I'm pretty sure it is," Wedge said.

"It definitely is," Leia said, coming up behind them. "It was just on the news. Some kind of explosion." She handed a datapad to Wedge. "They're saying it was in the Rogue Squadron bay."

"What?!" Wedge took the datapad and then looked around. "Did Jaina already go to work?"

"Yes. She left early. I've been trying to contact her, she hasn't picked up."

Wedge looked at Corran. "Did _you_ sense anything?" Corran shook his head.

"But you would know, though, wouldn't you?" Iella said. She looked at Corran. "Ripples, right?"

"Absolutely right," Brianna said behind them. "She's fine. If she wasn't, I would know." She looked at Leia. "And so would you."

"Would we?" Leia said.

" _That's_ not threat perception related," Brianna said.

"When Wedge and Cami crashed a few weeks ago," Corran said, "Luke knew about it, but I didn't."

Wedge caught Brianna narrow her eyes just slightly at Corran.

"She still hasn't picked up," Leia said again.

"Her workspace just blew up, she's probably a bit busy to take texts from mom," Brianna said. Leia glared at her. "You want me to check it out?" she asked. She didn't wait for an answer. "Fine, I'll go check it out. You." She pointed at Corran. "Let's go."

"Me?"

"You need participation points. Let's go. We'll meet you back at the spy building!" Brianna called over her shoulder as she led Corran back to the elevator.

* * *

Corran stole a quick glance at Brianna as they walked up to the administrative entrance to the fighter bays where Rogue Squadron normally parked. She'd been unusually quiet since leaving the apartment and had let Corran do all the talking as they made their way through various security checkpoints at Starfighter Command. They hadn't seen any security Corran thought might be fake. But, he also knew, he might not realize they were fake until it was too late.

He could still feel Jaina in the Force though. As they came through the last security point, he could see her on the far side of the room, standing with several other pilots, and a couple of other familiar faces. He raised his hand and waved. "Gavin!"

Colonel Gavin Darklighter, the soon-to-be-retired commander of Rogue Squadron, looked up, and grinned. He trotted over, followed by Jaina and the squadron executive officer, Commander Inyri Forge.

"Corran!" Gavin shook his hand and gave him a big hug. "Word gets around fast, I guess."

"We were with Leia this morning," Corran said, nodded to Jaina. "She knew about it. She's been trying to call you, by the way," he said to Jaina.

"I've been a bit busy," Jaina said.

"See, I told you," Brianna said.

"Ah, Gavin, Inyri, you remember my cousin Brianna right?" Jaina said. "She came with me to that squadron party a couple of years ago?"

"Oh sure," Gavin said. "How's your father?"

"Spectacular," Brianna said.

Corran saw Gavin frown. "So, we are here about the explosion," Corran said. It dawned on Corran just how many people would be completely unaware Luke might be struggling with something. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"Jaina can probably explain it best," Gavin said. "She warned us about it."

"I got a call from my droid at about two in the morning," Jaina said. "She was doing some spur of the moment testing on my fighter when she noticed a group of about eight people entering the hangar. No alarms went off so they must have had codes to get it. She saw them placing devices - turned out to be explosive devices - all over the hangar. That's when she called me. I called Gavin. By the time we got here with a security team, the people were gone. The devices were set to go off at zero eight thirty, after we all would have reported in. We called more security, shut off most of the devices, moved everything to a safe distance, and kept everyone out while we let a few of them go off."

"We figured we'd let someone think they succeeded while we try to figure out what's going on," Gavin said.

"Any ideas yet?" Corran asked.

"Starfighter Command Internal Security Bureau is working on it," Gavin said. "We got some footage of them while they were in here. I heard the ISB was trying to backtrack them through the building."

"Do you mind if we take a look, if you still have it?" Corran asked. "I'm asking because Wedge and Iella had an issue with some fake security at their building a couple of nights ago, and the NRDI is looking into it."

"Yeah, this way," Gavin said. He led them to his command office.

"Are they okay?" Inyri asked.

"Yeah, they're fine," Corran said. "They had to move apartments though."

"They're down the hall from my parents," Jaina said. She looked at Corran. "Wasn't sure how much I should say about that outside NRDI spaces."

Inside the office, Gavin logged into his terminal and opened up a holo-file. "This is it," he said. He pointed as the small figures made their way around the hangar bay. "You can see them placing devices. They knew where to put them. If they had all gone off, the whole hangar would have gone up, and probably taken out bits of the adjacent ones."

Corran took a closer look at the hologram. He couldn't make out if they looked the same as the people who had showed up at Wedge and Iella's apartment. "Can you or your ISB team send this to Iella at the NRDI? She knows we're over here, so if it's labeled with something like 'fake security Rogue Squadron' she can fast track it to her Analysis Division."

"You think it's the same?"

"Definitely worth a look," Corran said.

"I'll go take care of that," Inyri said.

Corran looked at Brianna, who had yet to offer any input. "What do you think?"

Brianna threw him a curious look, then shifted to Jaina. "You said your droid called you?"

"That's right."

"And no one else was in here at the time? People, I mean?"

"No, just the maintenance droids and fighter navigators that are stored here," Gavin said.

"Hmm. Did you sense anything?" Brianna asked.

Jaina opened her mouth then closed it again. "No, I didn't."

"Do you think you should have?"

Jaina glanced back and forth between Brianna and Corran. "Is there some extra Jedi stuff going on?" Gavin asked.

"Yeah, sure, Jedi stuff, listen," Brianna pointed at Jaina. "Can I borrow her? I'll bring her back I promise. Probably not today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not tomorrow. Can I borrow her?"

Gavin blinked and looked at Corran. It would have been too much to explain and Corran could tell Brianna's patience was thin. He nodded.

"Uh, sure," Gavin said. "Don't worry about the leave form, I'll take care of it. Just keep me updated, okay?"

"Sure, no problem," Jaina said.

"Thanks Gavin," Corran said. "We'll get out of your way. Come on, let's go." He led Jaina and Brianna back out of the squadron bay.

"Can you try to be normal?" Jaina said when they were safely out of earshot.

"No, sorry, I prefer not to be boring, thanks," Brianna said. "But really, _do_ you think you should have sensed it?"

"I don't know," Jaina said. "It's not like there's some 'ripple' algorithm that lets you figure out if something should be sensed or not."

"Hm, interesting idea though," Brianna mused. She looked at Corran. "You thought you should have been able to sense something you didn't. That's why we're even having this discussion."

"That was right in front of me though," Corran said.

"Does that matter? We sense things not right in front of us all the time."

"But that doesn't tell us if we _ought_ to have sensed something we didn't, especially if we didn't know about it."

"Do you think you ought to have sensed what happened to Wedge and Cami? That was your point this morning, wasn't it?"

"Well, partly, yes," Corran said. "You were the one who laid out the confounding factors for sensing something to Iella yesterday."

"I did," Brianna said. "Even if it's not generalizable, you should at least have an idea for yourself if a certain thing should have been sensed or not."

"Maybe this _isn't_ generalizable and this really is just Corran," Jaina said.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Brianna said.

Corran's communicator chirped. He pulled it out of his pocket and read the message. "Cami's in orbit," he said. "She's going to be landing soon at the section 81 dock. We should probably go meet her."

"I'll take care of that," Brianna said, stepping out ahead of them.

"We probably shouldn't split up," Corran said.

"You asked me to come solve your problem, I'm gonna go solve your problem. I'll meet you back at the spy building!"

Corran shook his head. "Come on," he said. "Let's go make sure Iella gets that file from Starfighter Command."

* * *

Brianna stood on a promenade overlooking the customs and intake area of dock 81. It was busy, but not crowded. Business owners, shippers, manifest agents, customs inspectors, and of course, security agents, moved and mingled through the gates, around conveyor belts, and up and down escalators. As an import/export business owner and shipper, Cami often came through here.

Brianna could _sense_ Cami nearby. That wasn't a problem. This wasn't Formuth. She tried to take stock of what she did know, while she watched people come and go.

There was still only evidence of Corran having a problem. Jaina hadn't been paying enough attention to give her any good information to work with. Corran knew when he should have sensed something but didn't. Brianna was less confident in his assertion that his threat perception had been triggered in the other two instances. She just couldn't put her finger on why. In a way, Brianna hoped the problem _wasn't_ just Corran. That would mean the problem was external and, in her opinion, more easily identified.

Brianna remembered Jacen's anecdotes to her several weeks earlier, running into people and having various Force sensing problems. She had toyed with the idea of calling him; she never had asked him what the datapads she'd given him said. But she never wanted him to feel like she was pressuring him to participate. He had his own reasons for staying away, reasons she could hardly blame him for. If Brianna had learned anything from her family history, it was that no one should be forced or misled into a life that was so strict. Especially when it didn't _have_ to be so strict. In Brianna's opinion.

Brianna spotted Cami coming through one of the customs gates. _Back to work._ Cami was alone. She must have left Whistler on board the _Skate._ Brianna scanned the rest of the customs floor. What she needed was a test.

Cami exited the gate and started walking across the customs floor toward one of the escalators below where Brianna was standing. Out of the corner of her eye, Brianna spotted three security agents break off from their group and start heading in the same direction. "What are you three up to?" Brianna wondered. She couldn't sense any threat from them. Not that that meant anything. Could be perfectly innocent. They could walk right past -

Another pilot, apparently someone Cami knew, flagged Cami down. As Cami stopped to chat, the three security agents, still several meters away, also stopped in their tracks. They turned inward, apparently having a private discussion. "Well, good, at least it's amateur hour again," Brianna muttered.

Cami finished her conversation and started walking toward the escalators again. Her three tags followed, skipping steps up the escalator to get closer. Brianna walked along the railing to get a better look as they came up to the floor beneath her. Cami hadn't noticed them yet.

Brianna paid close attention to her own senses. As Cami stepped off the escalator, one of her tags reached out and grabbed her by the arm. Brianna caught a brief flick of surprise from Cami, then a small spike in alarm as Cami turned around and finally noticed her attackers. Always one with quick reflexes, Cami wrenched free, ducked, and punched one of them in the face. The other two moved in.

"Fascinating," Brianna said. She'd caught Cami's reaction, but never the threat itself. Brianna ducked under the railing and dropped to the floor below. In one swift motion, she reached out with the Force and swept the three attackers off their feet, and shoved them back down the escalator. She grabbed Cami by the wrist. "Let's go." Brianna pulled her down a hallway and around a corner before stopping.

"Brianna! What just happened -"

"Shut up and listen," Brianna said. "Do you know where the Directorate of Intelligence building is, Iella Wessiri's office?"

"Yeah, sure, I -"

"Good. Go there right now. Immediately. No other stops. She's up there, Wedge is up there, your dad is up there. Go there and tell them I said, STAY PUT. Understand?"

"Yeah, can you -"

"They'll explain. Tell them I said stay put. I gotta go." Brianna started to walk away.

"Wait! Where are _you_ going?"

"I gotta run another test!"

* * *

Brianna sat at a café table trying to figure out how to proceed. She took out her pocket communicator and connected to the Holonet. She had looked up Tycho Celchu the night before, figuring she would have to go look for him eventually. Of course, she knew perfectly well _who_ he was. More or less. She read through his bio again and it was mostly stuff she knew. Alderaanian. Imperial Navy pilot. Defector. Rogue Squadron pilot and commander. She kept scrolling. Supposedly one of her dad's friends, albeit one she hadn't seen or heard from herself in over fifteen years. No surprise there.

She took a sip of coffee and took a closer look at the bio. She had to find him somewhere in this womprat's nest called Coruscant. It probably wasn't as bad as trying to find a grain of salt in a Tatooine sand dune, but it was close. What would someone of this background _feel_ like? She took another sip of coffee and pushed her Force sensitivity out from herself, analyzing the people around her. Family of Twi'leks? No. Pair of Bothans? No. Pair of humans? No, he'd be by himself.

She finished her coffee, put the empty cup in the collection bin, and exited the café. Standing on the catwalk, she turned around and then stopped, facing generally north west. She started walking. She didn't have a good reason for choosing that direction. She didn't like not having good reasons for things.

Brianna went up some levels, down others, and down a few more. She was about ten levels lower than where she started. She checked a sign. Level 464. She kept going. A few levels back up she spotted someone vaguely familiar looking in the distance. She pulled out her pocket communicator to look at the image again. "Yep, that looks like you," she said. She followed him, staying well behind, but keeping him in sight.

Seven sections and two levels later, the crowd was noticeably thinner. On a parallel catwalk to her left, ahead of her, but behind him, Brianna noticed six people in uniforms that could easily be assumed to be district security. She couldn't sense any threats. But by now she knew she was compromised. She kept walking. Finally he stopped and glanced around. He didn't appear to see her or his six tags. He pulled out his own pocket communicator.

Brianna snuck around to some empty café tables nearby and watched, pretending to scroll through Holobook, concentrating on her own senses. The six tags moved along a connector catwalk toward them. As they came up behind him, one of them tripped. Tycho turned around.

Brianna could see the confusion on his face turn to alarm. But this time, she wasn't getting anything, neither threat nor reaction. She kept watching.

One of the tags pulled her blaster and took a shot at him. He ducked and she missed. In the back of her mind, Brianna caught a brief flash of concern, but it wasn't from Tycho. Tycho pulled his own blaster, but one of the tags kicked it out of his hands. The flash of concern got bigger. _Oh, that's Corran,_ she realized. _How interesting._

One of the tags shoved Tycho to the ground. He pulled out his blaster and pointed it at Tycho's head. Corran was on the verge of panic, and Brianna still hadn't felt anything, other than the fact that these people existed in front of her. _Fascinating._ She waved her hand toward the fight. The blaster bolt evaporated centimeters from Tycho's face, as it got absorbed into Brianna's Force shield.

"What the hell?" one of them said. He fired five more times, to the same effect.

Deciding a lightsaber was overkill, Brianna grabbed one of the café table umbrella poles. It was more staff than saber. She was competent enough with a staff, but it wasn't her favorite. She hopped across the tables and jumped down next to the group. "Hello there!"

They all turned to look at her. "Who the hell are you?"

"Nah, man, that's not the line," Brianna said.

They turned their blasters on Brianna but she was already prepared and faster than them. She whipped the pole around, striking four of them within seconds. She reached out and grabbed the blasters, flinging them over the side of the catwalk. She maneuvered between the group, slicing and striking, until all six were incapacitated. Not hurt. Much. Good enough. She dropped the pole. She hauled Tycho up and pulled him down another catwalk behind them, and around a corner where she stopped.

"You suck," she said. "They were following you for ten sections."

"You must be Brianna," he said.

"You must be a genius."

"Well, I thought that must have been Corran."

"Did you? How interesting. Speaking of which, call him, and tell him to calm down."

"What?"

"Call him," she Force pulled his pocket communicator out and shoved it back to him, "and tell him to calm down."

"But -"

"Do it. Now." Brianna folded her arms while he dutifully keyed in the number and waited for it to connect.

Corran answered quickly. "Tycho! Where are you? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Corran, I'm fine, everything's fine."

"I'm coming out to get you."

"No, it's -"

"Hey," Brianna injected herself. "You need to stay put."

"But -"

"Did Cami make it up there?"

"Yes, she's here."

"And she told you I said stay put?"

"Yes, but -"

"Good. You asked me to come solve your problem, I'm out here solving your problem. We're on our way back. You. Stay. Put. Understand?"

"Okay, fine, but -"

"Excellent. Out." Brianna disconnected the call and looked at Tycho. "Let's go."


	4. Chapter 4

Tycho followed Brianna as they wound their way back through the levels of Coruscant, presumably to the Directorate of Intelligence building. She hadn't said anything since she cut Corran off. Admittedly, he did not know Luke's kids very well. He had always heard good things about Corey. And he had heard Leia complain about Brianna sometimes. But he hadn't expected her to be so abrasive. He knew there was a third sibling too, but he couldn't think of her name off top of his head.

She turned slightly to look at him. "You have an issue?"

"Well, no," he said. "You're just not what I expected, I suppose."

Brianna nodded, seemingly unimpressed with his answer. "Dare I ask what you expected?"

"I don't know. I guess, well, you're not very much like your father."

Brianna laughed. "Good thing that's not a rule."

Tycho frowned. Brianna stared at him for a moment. Finally she rolled her eyes and turned away from him again. Then it clicked. "Did you just tell a Darth Vader joke?!"

"Yep, sure did."

" _Why_?!"

"Everyone loves a good family activity."

Tycho felt his jaw drop. He remembered what Winter had said about how distraught Leia had been after her treasure box had been made public. He had never talked to her or Luke directly about it, but Wedge had also mentioned how hard it had been for them to cope with all of that. "I think I know why Leia complains about you sometimes," he said.

"See?" Brianna said lightly. "And look how mad she is all the time. Can you imagine if I was that pissed off and angry all the time? It'd be a galactic catastrophe." She turned around to face him and started walking backwards. She spread her arms wide. "What do you think, on a scale of nothing to Darth Vader, how bad do you think that would be?"

"Are you kidding?"

Brianna dropped her arms. "Well, you're not any fun." She turned around again and waved him off. "I only have, like, five Darth Vader jokes anyway, and that's already three of them. Relax."

"Maybe you should be more like your father," Tycho said.

"Yeah, why is that?"

"He's a great Jedi."

Brianna snorted. "Because you would know."

Was he really having to defend Luke to his own daughter? "I've known Luke for almost forty years," he said. "He's one of my best friends. I'm pretty sure I have some idea how this works."

"Sorry, who are you again?"

"What?"

"Who are you?"

Tycho frowned. What was that supposed to mean? "Tycho. Tycho Celchu."

"I don't know who that is."

Tycho couldn't understand what she meant. Of course she knew who he was. He decided to ignore it. "Jedi are supposed to be great, noble warriors," he said.

Brianna threw him an amused glance. "Here's your Jedi fun fact for the day. 'Jedi warrior' is not a thing. Maybe in some limited, speciality circumstances. But traditionally? Not a thing."

"But they were generals during the Clone Wars," Tycho said. "And your father fought with the Alliance. So did Corran. And your cousin is in the military."

Brianna shrugged. "Sure, I don't think there should be any rule against individual Jedi joining the military if they want," she said. "But I'm telling you, it's not traditionally an _institutional_ function." She turned around to face him again. "During the Clone Wars, there was a lot of debate, both inside and outside the Jedi Order, about whether 'warfighting' was appropriate for the Jedi to be doing, and whether the Jedi Code even allowed for it at all."

"Why? What did it say?" The Jedi Code wasn't something Tycho had ever really heard Luke or Corran talk about before.

"Think of the Code like a set of rules of engagement," Brianna said, "though, one narrower than most militaries might have. Most Jedi prior to the Clone Wars, in accordance with the Code, were trained as ambassadors, negotiators, and peacekeepers. Not warfighters. The Republic didn't even have a military. But, there were some people who thought that the Jedi could stay within the Code and still do what the Galactic Senate needed from them during the war. Call this the Obi Wan Kenobi position."

"Luke's teacher," Tycho said. "I know that name."

"Then there were people who thought the Jedi shouldn't be in the warfighting business at all and needed to just get out of the way. You might call this the Wilhuff Tarkin position."

"Tarkin, like Moff Tarkin?"

"The same. He was a Republic naval captain and then admiral, at the time. Then you had a third group of people who thought the Code was too restrictive and ought to be expanded to allow the Jedi greater latitude to conduct war business." Brianna threw him a small smirk. "Call this the Anakin Skywalker position."

Tycho's eyes widened. "Did they know each other?"

"Ohh, yeah, those cats knew each other." Brianna grinned. "My favorite part is at the end conversation where they're figuring out they're both favored by Chancellor Palpatine so they start trying to one up each other. Like, slow your roll guys, you'll find something bigger to play with later."

"Something bigger?"

She kept grinning. "Give it a minute, you'll figure it out."

Tycho wasn't sure he wanted to. He decided to ask a different question. "You said Palpatine favored Anakin?"

"Grooming is probably the more accurate description," Brianna said. "But yes."

Tycho hesitated. She didn't seem like the type to get offended... "Is...is that what happened to Anakin? Why he became Darth Vader?"

Brianna frowned at him. "Do you not know this story?"

"Well, not really, no," Tycho admitted. "I found out out they were the same person when Leia's treasure box was made public, just like everyone else. Even Winter didn't know about it. I was in the lobby of the Senate building, watching Luke and Leia's testimony about it on the holoprojector, with Wedge and Corran and Wes and Hobbie. They couldn't really answer many of the questions because they didn't know anything. That's when R2 came up to us, wanting to talk to Wedge. They disappeared. A couple of hours later, Luke and Leia came back out onto the Senate floor _with_ R2, there was some mention of the Clone Wars, and the feed was cut off. We didn't see Wedge again for the rest of the day. We never really got the rest of what happened."

Brianna shook her head. "Bunch of delinquents," she muttered. "If I had my way, everyone would know the whole story." She looked at Tycho. "You have been epically failed, my friend." She sighed. "Okay. I'm going to give you the _super_ short version." She turned around and started walking backwards while she talked. "I mentioned the Jedi Code earlier. One of the other multitude of reasons Anakin disliked the Jedi Code was a particular provision that said 'Attachments are Forbidden.' Attachments," she continued before Tycho could ask, "are anything you have an emotional connection to, which, if you lost it, you would have a really, really bad day. This could be people, could be objects, could be places, could be circumstances."

"People?" Tycho asked. "Do you mean like families and friends?"

"Pretty much," Brianna said. "Old Republic Jedi were not allowed to have families. I imagine most people become pretty attached to their kids and spouses."

That didn't sound right. "But Corellian Jedi had families," Tycho said. "We know about Corran's family and the medallions Corellian Jedi made for family members."

"Ah, interesting point," Brianna said, pointing at him. "From what I can tell from limited research, Corellian Jedi did not mix with, for lack of a better term, mainstream Jedi. Corellian Jedi didn't leave their system much. And Corellia wasn't a member world of the Republic anyway, so the Jedi based here on Coruscant had no jurisdiction there."

In spite of himself, Tycho was getting interested. "What if someone _wanted_ to get married or have kids though?"

Brianna shrugged. "You'd have to voluntarily leave the Jedi Order. Or you could do it in secret, but if you got caught, you'd be expelled."

"Expelled? That seems harsh."

"Them's the rules."

"What if they just went home?"

Brianna sighed. "Unfortunately that wasn't a thing either. See, Jedi took kids - with parental consent, of course - when they were about three or four years old. They were brought here, to the Jedi temple, and that's where they lived and worked and trained. They didn't go home. Ever."

"What? Why so young?"

"It goes back to this business about attachments, right? Kids that young are right at the age where their brains start forming real attachments to their primary caregivers. When you take them away, that attachment process is disrupted. Most civilized places consider this child abuse. For the Jedi Order, it was a feature, not a bug." She grinned at him. "Not so sanguine about the Jedi Order anymore, are we?"

"That is...mildly horrifying," Tycho said. He remembered what Winter had told him about how distressed Jacen and Jaina had felt when they were brought back to Coruscant after living with her in seclusion for a couple of years. "Is _that_ what happened to Anakin?" he asked.

"Not exactly," Brianna said. "He started training when he was nine. He initially was told no _because_ he was too old. When he left Tatooine, he left his mom, he left his friends, people he was already attached to. Most kids trained in age group cohorts for ten _years_ before moving on to individual training with a Jedi Knight or Master. Anakin started individual training immediately with Obi Wan, who had only been a Padawan himself literally a day earlier. So he never really made other friends. So much of the training regime was predicated on assumptions of how a kid entered the system, and Anakin met _none_ of those assumptions. His training was basically a disaster in the making from day one. And that's _before_ you add in Sheev Palpatine taking an interest in him for his own nefarious purposes."

Brianna sighed. "It was always framed as Palpatine just being nice to the kid. Palpatine always listened when Anakin talked about how much he missed his mom, when the Jedi told him not to be attached. Palpatine always told him kind things when Anakin thought the Jedi were mean. Palpatine always encouraged him to do more when he thought the Jedi were holding him back. It was all a set up, of course. But the Jedi Council played right into it. Anakin had a lot of legitimate grievances with the Jedi Council and I'm Team Anakin on ninety-nine percent of them. He kind of got screwed by everyone."

_What an awful thing to do to a kid,_ Tycho thought. "So he never got to see his mom again."

"Well, he did," Brianna said. "Right before the Clone Wars kicked off, he took a secret trip back to Tatooine to look for her. He found her - she'd been kidnapped by some Tusken Raiders - but she only lived long enough to recognize him. He blamed Obi Wan for it. He had wanted to go back and felt that if Obi Wan had let him, he could have saved her."

"No attachments," Tycho said.

"He got secretly married soon after that. Three years into the Clone Wars, his wife finds out she's pregnant. He starts having nightmares about her dying in childbirth. But obviously he can't tell anyone. He'll get kicked out. He already doesn't trust Obi Wan. Yoda brushed him off. But, along comes Palpatine. 'I can help you save her!' Which was a lie, of course. You've probably heard that the Jedi attacked Palpatine and that's why he labeled them traitors."

"That's what I learned as a kid," Tycho said.

"Technically, that's true," Brianna said. "Anakin was the one who told the Jedi Council Palpatine was a Sith Lord. Even up to that point, he was still trying to do the right thing. But when it came time to choose, really choose, between a Jedi who had just told Anakin he wasn't trustworthy and Sheev Palpatine…" Brianna shrugged. "At the end of the day, you choose the people who are kind to you."

"And that was it?"

"That was it. Anakin helped kill the Jedi Palpatine was fighting. He took a battalion of Clone troopers and killed all the younglings still in the Jedi temple. He had an _epic_ lightsaber fight with Obi Wan, and lost. That blue lightsaber my dad used to have? That's the one Obi Wan took from Anakin after that fight."

Tycho's jaw dropped. "The one he killed all the kids with?"

"Yep."

Tycho grimaced. "Just as well he doesn't have _that_ anymore," he muttered. Brianna shrugged. "And his wife still died anyway?"

"Yeah. Medical droids had to operate. Bail Organa happened to be there. He took the girl back to Alderaan. Obi Wan took the boy back to Tatooine. And here we are."

Tycho fell silent as he continued to follow Brianna. He could certainly understand Luke and Leia not wanting to talk about that. It was all so tragic and traumatic. He never imagined he'd feel bad for Darth Vader. Still… "He lost his home and his family," Tycho said, "but so many _more_ people lost lives and homes and families because of what he did. _I_ can't go home. But I decided to make sure sure that didn't happen to anyone else. I didn't go do _more_ of it."

"Well, I'm not suggesting that anything I said negates twenty-three years of galactic destruction," Brianna said.

"So...how do you keep that from happening again?" Tycho asked.

"That's the real question, isn't it," Brianna answered.

"But, Luke and Leia fixed it," Tycho said. "They changed how all of that works, how people train. They got rid of all those bad ideas."

"They didn't 'get rid of' anything," Brianna said. "They didn't _know_ about any of it."

"They must have known some of it."

"Not most of it. That was the whole problem. Those two lying dirtbag teachers of his were so fixated on their little scheme that they never they never bothered to explain what a Jedi Council is, how it functioned - _dysfunctioned_ , really - or how any of this is supposed to relate to the government or the rest of the galaxy."

"What scheme?" Tycho asked. She was starting to talk faster and Tycho was trying to keep up.

"Their _scheme_ ," she said again. "These two sat in their little hidey holes for _nineteen years_ and the best idea they could come up with to fix the problem _they_ were complicit in creating was to weaponize Anakin's kids against him, without ever telling them what was going on. When my dad finally figured out what was going on, he told them to take their studpid idea and shove it - I might be paraphrasing. They lied to him, used him, abused him, and when he finally called them out on their garbage, they acted like lying counts as a 'point of view.' Sorry, no."

Tycho winced as he realized there was even more about this he didn't know. "Lying...you're talking about Vader and Anakin being the same person?"

" _Yes_. They knew damn well he wouldn't play their little game if he knew they were just trying to get him to kill his own father. Then they tried to feed him some garbage that the 'Emperor will win' if he didn't do it. He told them where to shove that one too. I might be paraphrasing."

"But," Tycho said, "Vader and the Emperor did die at Endor. That's what Luke went up to the second Death Star for…" Brianna turned her head slowly to look at him, eyes narrowed. "Or...not?" Tycho said. "I'm trying to remember what Wedge told us later."

Brianna grumbled and hung her head. "He went up there," she said, "to try to flip him. Because he believed he could, that Anakin could. Basically the opposite of what Obi Wan and Yoda even thought was possible. Here's the real kicker though," she said, turning to face him. "The Emperor wanted him to kill Vader too."

"What? Why?"

"Here's the thing about Sith," she said. "It's called the Rule of Two. The history of it is fascinating. But I did promise you the short version and I'm failing. But, there's only ever two at time, see, a master and an apprentice. The apprentice might kill the master and take on a new apprentice. The apprentice might die and the master will have to go find a new apprentice. Or _sometimes_ the master already has a new apprentice in mind, so he tries to get the new one to kill the old one. Anakin killed Palpatine's previous apprentice. He became the new apprentice. Palpatine tried to get my dad to kill Vader. And they did fight it out a bit, and my dad almost won. But then, just like before, he figured out what the game was and told the Emperor to go pound sand - I might be paraphrasing."

"I think you might be paraphrasing," Tycho said.

"Then the Emperor gets pissed because now _his_ plan isn't going to work. So he just tries to kill my dad himself. And there's Anakin, once again, with a choice. Does he choose the person who'd been lying to him and tried to replace him? Or does he choose the person, the family he always thought he wanted, who believed he could be better?"

"You choose the person who's been kind to you," Tycho said.

"It's definitely one of the more brilliant things he's ever done. My dad I mean."

Tycho smiled. "That's the Luke I know."

Brianna raised an eyebrow. "Is it?"

Tycho frowned. "Well, I don't understand. Luke is one of the best people I know. He's kind and generous and non-judgmental. He'd go to the end of the galaxy and back if you needed him to."

"Yeah, he sure does a lot for _other_ people," she said dryly.

"So he _is_ a great Jedi," Tycho said. "He's everything everyone expected a Jedi to be."

"How would anyone else know what a Jedi is supposed to be?" Brianna said. "I just told you a bunch of stuff you didn't know. A lot of that was stuff _he_ didn't know until nine years ago. But sure, everyone has all these expectations. All these high placed Alliance schmucks who maybe had a vague idea of what a Jedi with twenty years of training and experience could reasonably be expected to do. But my dad after Endor? With a grand total of _two months_ of formal training and four years of trial and error on his own? Sure, totally equivalent. But what's he gonna do, say, 'oh sorry, I don't actually know how any of that works, maybe ask me later'? No, he'll just go along with it, until he does figure it out. He's a smart person, and a good person, so 'fake it til you make it' works, sort of, maybe, most of the time. As long as you discount the constant paranoia that someone will figure out you're just making things up half the time. Until something really does go catastrophically wrong."

"But nothing has gone catastrophically wrong," Tycho said. Was she referring to what Corran told him about what happened on the med center platform?

Brianna threw him an annoyed glance. "You might have noticed I have two cousins who don't hang out here anymore. He was their teacher, he was responsible for them. Truthfully, their issue was more with _their_ parents than with him, but of course Leia won't hear anything about that. She just dumped the blame on the one person she knew wouldn't fight back. And he just stood there and took it because he did feel responsible.

"He's completely incapable of saying no to her. Even before the war, he was so busy taking care of _her_ kids that he never had time for us. He was running around trying to be a one-person Jedi Council, teacher, diplomat, literally everything everyone else thought they needed or wanted. Then afterwards, he kept trying to make it up to her, kept trying to meet everyone else's expectations _again_ , and we were the ones who got shorted _again_. My brother and Lujayne finally got fed up and left. He hasn't talked to them in _eight years_. My sister finally got fed up and left. He hasn't talked to her in six years. No one else talks to him, except Wedge. Leia only calls when she wants something, Corran hadn't called Yavin in six years until I shamed him into it six weeks ago." She turned face to face with Tycho. "I've been stuck on Yavin almost my entire life. I know who calls there, I know who shows up there, and I know what all of those people want. And _I don't know who you are._ "

Tycho stopped as she stared hard at him. Now he understood. Her criticisms weren't aimed at her father at all, not really...

"Are you going to cry?" Brianna asked. "I'll tell you right now, I don't do crying."

Tycho took a small breath. "When I defected, I wasn't sure I'd ever make friends. Some people probably did think I was a spy. A lot of people thought I was naive. When I was assigned to Rogue Squadron - I was the first one after Luke and Wedge - they were so kind to me. They were the first friends I made. They're my oldest friends. It was the first time since I defected - in a lot of ways, the first time in my life - that I really felt like I belonged somewhere.

"When he left the squadron to focus more on his Jedi training, we were all really proud of him. We missed him, but we were proud of him. But he never forgot us. Right before the Endor mission, he came to check on us, before he left with the ground team. It was the first major operation we did without him. When I was in prison for murder and spying, he came to visit me. He knew I wasn't guilty. But he was the only person I really felt safe telling how scared I actually was. I couldn't tell Wedge, he felt guilty enough already. When Winter was away for those few years, watching Jacen and Jaina and Anakin, I didn't know where she was or what she was doing. But Luke found out I was writing her love letters. He got Wedge to collect them from me so he could deliver them, and then bring hers back. I didn't even know it was his idea until later.

"He's always been the person you could tell anything to. He was always the person you could rely on, or would give you advice. It didn't matter how you were feeling about something or what you thought you may have screwed up. He never judged, never made you feel like a burden, or like you were unimportant. He always made time for you when you needed him." He glanced back up at Brianna.

"Hm." She turned around and started walking away.

_But not for you._ Tycho ran a few steps to catch up with her. "I'm sure he wanted more time with you."

"Well, yeah. Wanting and doing aren't the same thing."

No. They weren't. Tycho thought again about what Corran had told him earlier. Maybe there was more to that than he'd thought. "Corran told me what happened on the med center platform."

"Is that right."

"I told him I thought maybe he was overthinking things. Luke has always seemed like the most resilient person. When he's been here doing things for Leia, I'd run into him sometimes, we'd chat, and it never seemed like anything was wrong. But I guess that's the problem. It was when I happened to run into him. I didn't go look for him. I guess we thought - or I thought - since we could always go to him when we needed something, surely he could come to us if he needed...anything. It never occurred to me that he wouldn't. Or...couldn't."

They started to walk up the stairs to the NRDI headquarters entrance. "You said Wedge calls him?" Tycho asked.

"Every week," Brianna said.

"Every week?"

"Yep. Not the last six weeks. But almost every week, for, say, the last twenty-five to thirty years. Just to say hi, just to talk, just to see what's up. Actually comes to Yavin every couple of months too. Just to hang out for a few hours."

"I didn't know that," Tycho said. "Wedge must know some of this then."

"Oh, he knows _all_ about it," Brianna said. "If you want to be mad at someone for not telling you stuff, go be mad at him."

"Oh, we're going to have a talk about this, for sure," Tycho said. He caught an amused glance from Brianna.

They passed through the lobby. "Good afternoon Master Jedi!"

Brianna yelled over Tycho's head. "Hey, Bena'a, what's up! Hey, me and my friend here, we're just gonna pop up to Wessiri's office, is that cool?"

"Oh yes, have a good day Master Jedi!"

"All right, thanks man, you take care, don't work too hard." She pulled Tycho into one of the elevators and pressed the button for Iella's floor.

"You know people here?" Tycho asked.

"You'd be amazed what a little candy bribe can do."

" _Candy bribe?!_ "

"Yeah, people love candy, you know. Dang it, I don't have my backpack, I'd give you some."

"But...a candy bribe?"

"Sure." She gave him a small, almost sheepish grin. "A little name recognition probably didn't hurt either."

Tycho chuckled. "Ah, I see."

"If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong," Brianna said.

Tycho grinned. That sounded familiar. "You're a little weird," he said.

"Better than being boring."

"You know who you kind of remind me of?"

"That's usually a bad thing. Do I want to know?"

"We have these two other friends," Tycho said. "I may have mentioned them earlier. They're, well, _you_ don't know who they are."

"Ah, those kinds of friends."

"I - yeah. Anyway, one of them, Wes, he's sort of made a mini side career out of being weird. The running joke was always that Luke was his best audience because he would _always_ laugh at Wes' weirdness."

"Really?" Brianna raises an eyebrow. "That sounds fascinating. Define weird for me."

"Just constantly cracking jokes, making strange comments, acting like a little kid, trying to squeeze as much fun as possible out of _everything_. He's always really funny. Drives Wedge nuts."

" _Does it_?" Brianna's face brightened. "This sounds dangerous. I like it. We'll talk later." The elevator door opened into the lobby of Iella's floor. "Hey Fina!"

"Good afternoon Master Jedi!"

"We're just gonna roll through, is that cool?"

"Of course! There are already a few others in Director Wessiri's office."

"Fabulous. You have a spectacular day."

Fina let them into the main hallway. "Another candy bribe?" Tycho asked, after the door had closed.

"Absolutely." Brianna stopped in front of Iella's door. "You ready?"

"For what?"

She winked at him and waved her hand over the keypad. "Show time."


	5. Chapter 5 and Epilogue

"They've almost got the whole network mapped out," Iella said. "We should be able to move on it pretty soon if -"

Corran looked over as Iella's office door swooshed open. He jumped up. "Tycho! Where have you been? Are you -?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Tycho said. "It's okay."

"But -"

"I have," Brianna announced as she threw up her arms, "a theory." She pointed at Corran as he sat down. "Your little filter problem is not just your filter problem. It's my problem, it's Cami's problem, it's almost certainly Jaina's problem, though I haven't been able to test that explicitly yet."

"Well that's not good news," Iella said.

"The good news," Brianna said, walking over to get a pastry, "is that this block or disruption or whatever we want to call it, seems to be imperfect."

"Imperfect," Corran said.

"Yeah. The point seems to be to block out perceptions of threats, but things still get through, right?" Brianna walked back to the group. "When you were in the hallway, you didn't catch the threat from the projectile, or whatever, but I suspect what you caught was Wedge's reaction to it."

"Yeah, that's possible," Corran said.

"Same thing when you went back to the apartment later. So _threats_ don't get through, but other people's reactions to threats do. This seems to be predicated on two things though. How threatened does the other person actually feel, and how well do you know the person?"

"Why would that matter?" Corran asked.

"It's not so much a particular reason why it matters," Brianna said. "It's more that those two things together make the perception strong enough - or not - to get through the filter." She pointed at Cami. "Did you feel it when she got jumped by some people earlier today?"

Corran frowned. Cami had told them what happened at the port. "No," he said.

"Right," Brianna said. "She knows how to handle business and she wasn't that alarmed. I caught it because I happened to be standing there watching the whole thing." She pointed at Tycho. "You caught this one though."

"Yeah, definitely."

"But I didn't," Brianna said. "I watched the whole thing and I caught none of it." She put her hand on Tycho's shoulder. "Right? I don't know who you are."

Corran caught a quick twinge of guilt from Tycho. "Yeah," he said.

Briana slapped his shoulder. "But, that's fine, that's fixable." She looked back at Corran. "So, imperfect."

"We wouldn't have known about this at all then," Iella said, "if something hadn't happened with both Corran and Wedge right there."

"That's probably true," Brianna said.

"So whoever - or whatever - is causing this disruption could have been operating for weeks without anyone knowing," Mirax said. She looked at Cami. "Maybe that's how the _Skate's_ nav system got hacked. You would never have sensed a threat."

"That's not a happy thought," Corran said.

"If all of that is true," Iella said slowly, "if whoever or whatever this is has been operating for much longer than we thought, then the network the analysts have found so easy to put together might only be a top layer. A decoy maybe, or just simply expendable."

"But why?" Wedge asked. "If you can operate like this undetected, why do something like attack us that might expose you? A disposable top level network I get, but not exposing a potentially imperfect, I don't know, cloaking mechanism."

Corran looked over at Brianna. Her eyes were shifting back and forth as if her brain were working faster than everyone else's.

"Maybe," Brianna said, "they don't know it's imperfect."

"Good news for us," Corran said.

"They must know it's imperfect now," Iella said.

"Maybe," Brianna said, her face brightening as if a whole bunch of ideas were suddenly coming together, "it's a test."

"A test?"

"Yeah." Brianna got more animated as she explained. "You make a new toy for yourself, what're you gonna do? You do a test before you roll it out, right?" She pointed at Corran. "Those dudes at the apartment were gonna ask you a bunch of questions, right? How much you wanna bet they were going to ask you all the same things I did? What did you sense, when did you sense it, are you absolutely sure, and how do you know? _And_ ," she turned to Iella, "we roll up the top layer, no big deal, they're expendable. They push up the next layer, and reset the test."

Iella leaned back in her chair, likely contemplating the likelihood and severity of this scenario. "So the question is," Corran said, "what do we do about it? If that's even what's going on."

"No, the question is," Brianna said, starting to pace the room, "is what else is imperfect about this?" She stopped and looked at Corran. "Because what we have isn't all that useful, right, unless we want to send one of these four," she waved her hand vaguely at Iella, Mirax, Tycho, and Wedge, "in ahead of us when we go somewhere. I think we can all agree that's not preferable."

Corran resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Okay. So how do we figure out what else is imperfect?"

Brianna tapped the top of the desk for a moment then looked at Iella. "Does this place have a gym?"

"A what?"

"A gym, you know, like a work out space."

"Ten levels above the main lobby. Why?"

"Excellent. I need props." Brianna turned for the door. "Nobody leave the building!"

Corran rubbed his face as the door shut behind her. "Does she ever slow down?" Iella asked.

"No," Jaina and Cami said.

Iella sighed, then nodded at Mirax. "Come on. Let's take a walk over to the Analysis Division and see if they can start looking for any hidden layers."

"If that's a thing," Corran said.

Iella patted him on the shoulder. "Just because you haven't had any ideas…" she pointed at Jaina. "You're in charge. No one leaves this office."

"Yes ma'am."

"Why is she in charge?"

"Because you three," Iella said pointing to him, Wedge, and Tycho as she and Mirax walked out, "get into trouble."

* * *

Corran poured himself another cup of coffee while they waited for Iella, Mirax, and Brianna to come back. Tycho had told them what happened when he got attacked and Brianna intervened. Tycho had talked a little bit about his conversation with Briann on the way back, mostly about what Jedi training was like compared to what it was under the Old Republic. He seemed reluctant to go into much detail, making Corran wonder what else they had talked about. Corran assumed Tycho simply wanted to wait until Jaina and Cami weren't around, which wasn't surprising. What had been surprising was, as Tycho talked, Corran caught flashes of...concern?...sadness?...hurt? Even more surprising was that Tycho's emotions had been directed at Wedge. It made Corran wonder even more what Brianna had said to him.

The office door opened and Iella entered, followed by Mirax and Brianna. Brianna was carrying four saber-length sticks.

"Brianna was just telling us about stick day!" Iella said.

Brianna held one of the sabers out in front of her. "My advanced students _love_ stick day," she said as she twirled it around. "They get to go nuts on each other without actually hurting anybody. Maybe a few bruises. No big deal. My intermediate students hate it. 'But Bri, we just got lightsabers!' Shush, my classroom isn't a democracy." She walked over to the side door. "What's in here?"

"Conference room," Iella said.

"Hmm." Brianna opened the door. "Ah! Perfect!" She dropped the sabers on the floor and used the Force to push the chairs to the side and the long table up on its side and against a wall. She snatched up two of the sabers and turned around as everyone crowded in behind her.

Corran watched her scan the group. Her eyes fell on him and she started to smile. Corran didn't like it.

She pointed a saber at him. "You. Come here."

Corran glanced at Tycho and Wedge, but they just looked back at him. No support there. He signed and walked toward Brianna as she tossed him one of the sabers.

"I'm not gonna bite ya," she said as she moved to the center of the room.

"Are you sure?"

Brianna grinned and then pointed at the floor, directing Corran to stand in front of her. She set into a defensive stance. "Three strikes," she said. "Half speed."

"Half speed?"

"Yeah, you practice slow sometimes, don't you?"

Corran hesitated a fraction of a second longer than he meant to. "Yeah, of course."

"Ha. Good, so this shouldn't be hard."

"Well, I don't know what _your_ half speed is."

"I guarantee my half speed is faster than your half speed, so you do you."

Corran bit back a growl. She always had to have an ego. Corran moved in to strike, a little faster than his own "half speed." Brianna blocked the first one, nearly missed the second one, and Corran caught her at the waist on the third one. She hissed and tripped over her feet as she fell.

Jaina burst out laughing. "Is anyone recording this for posterity?"

Brianna scrambled back to her feet and pointed her saber at her cousin. "Shush, you." She looked back at Corran. "Again. Three strikes. Quarter speed this time."

"Are you sure I shouldn't do one eighth speed?" Corran asked.

"Aw, someone thinks he's cute today. Shut up, and do what I tell you." She reset her defensive stance.

Corran struck again, this time much more slowly. Brianna blocked all three easily.

"Again."

Corran struck three more times. And again, and again, and again, on her instruction. The last time, she blocked everything with her eyes closed.

She grinned. "Got you," she whispered.

"Got what?" Corran asked. He still hadn't worked out what she was trying to figure out.

"One more time," she said. "Three strikes. Half speed."

"Right. One more time." Corran moved in to strike as Brianna closed her eyes again. She blocked all three strikes. Then, before Corran could react, she pivoted and struck back, hitting his shoulder, waist, and legs. As he fell he could hear Wedge and Tycho snickering. He looked up at Brianna. "Ow."

She smirked back down at him. "That's what you get for being a smart ass."

"What do you get for being a smart ass?" Corran asked as he got back to his feet.

"I get to be right," she said. "Circle drills. Let's go."

"What are circle drills?"

"You don't know circle drills?"

"Am I supposed to?"

Brianna turned to Cami. "He doesn't know circle drills?" Cami shrugged. "I am very disappointed in you right now." Cami shrugged again. Brianna sighed and turned back to Corran. "Okay. Circle drills. You, stand there." She pointed to the floor in the center of the room. "You are going to close your eyes - no cheating. I am going to walk around you in a circle. When I bring the saber up," she demonstrated, "you say up. When I bring it down, you say down. Got it?"

"Sounds simple enough."

"Okay. Eyes closed, no cheating." She held the saber up in front of her. "Stay focused on this. Ready?"

Corran dutifully closed his eyes. "Ready."

Corran could clearly sense both Brianna and the saber in the Force. She started moving around to his left. "Up." She came up behind him on his right. "Down… up… down… up…" Corran had to admit, it was a good focusing and centering exercise. He wondered if she had come up with it on her own or if she picked it up somewhere else. "Down… up… down… up… up," he repeated as she brought the saber up over her head.

"Good."

"Down… up…" As Brianna came around to his front again, suddenly the saber disappeared in the Force. In its place, coming toward him, was something shaped almost like a saber, but fuzzy and distorted, like static over a communications channel. Instinctively, Corran stepped back and raised his own saber to block. There was a soft _clack_ as the two sabers connected. Corran opened his eyes to see Brianna in front of him, still in her strike pose, looking at him intensely. "What was that?" Corran asked.

"So you saw it?"

"You mean the distortion? Instead of the saber? Is that what you mean?"

"You saw it?"

"I - yeah."

Brianna grinned. "Fantastic. Friend, we are in business." She backed up and reset her defensive stance. "Three strikes. Half speed. Volley." She pointed at the floor in front of her.

Corran slowly nodded as his brain caught up to what she'd figured out. _Got to admit that's clever_ , he thought. He struck three times, and she blocked each one. Brianna pivoted quickly, catching him at the waist. _Damn it, missed it._

"Focus!" Brianna yelled. "Again."

_Okay, now I get it._ Corran struck again, this time maintaining his focus on her saber. As she pivoted, he could see it transition in the Force from clear saber to distortion. He blocked all three of her strikes.

Brianna backed up to disengage again. "Ah, look at that. You _do_ know how to do this!"

"That's the last bit of satisfaction you're going to get out of me," Corran said.

"Oh, I doubt that. You're welcome to try and prove me wrong as many times as you like though." She tapped the floor. "Again."

Corran wasn't sure how many times they volleyed in sets of three, sometimes four or five as they each tried to throw each other off. But the longer they went, the more quickly he was able to track the transition to the distortion.

Finally, Brianna backed up without returning the volley. Corran exhaled. It was more exhausting than he'd expected. "Take a break," Brianna said. She pointed at Jaina. "You. Circle drills. Let's go."

Corran walked back to the group and laid his saber against the wall as Jaina snatched up her own and moved to the center of the room. He threw her a quick nod as she got started.

"That looked so interesting," Iella said.

"Looks like you found another imperfection," Mirax said.

"Yeah." Corran ran his hand through his hair as he continued to catch his breath. "It's weird. You won't notice it unless you're really focused." He looked at Cami. "You're not sensing a threat like you normally would. But when the saber _becomes_ a threat, instead of getting an anticipatory sense, you can actually see it get distorted in the Force. But you can see the transition in the Force sooner than you would just looking at it."

"Because whatever is trying to block our threat perception is imperfect," Cami said.

"Right."

"I've done a lot of different kinds of training," Iella said. "And I've never seen anything quite like this."

"Corran doesn't let me watch him practice," Mirax said as she gave him a quick wink. "He's too embarrassed."

Corran kisses his wife's hand. "Thank you for that."

"You must see this all the time," Iella said to Cami.

"Brianna makes me practice every time I see her," Cami said. "And we almost always start with circle drills."

Iella looked past Corran and Tycho and Wedge. "You two must have seen this before."

"Nope, never," Tycho said.

Corran noticed Wedge suddenly become slightly uncomfortable. "Well, I've never really watched Brianna teach, if that's what you're asking," Wedge said slowly. "I used to watch Luke practice a lot, a long time ago, pre-Hoth days. When we had some downtime, he and I and R2 would find an out-of-the-way spot so he could practice. R2 would program remote droids for him."

"I didn't know you were doing that!" Tycho said. Corran caught a bit more of Tycho's hurt feelings and wondered again what he and Brianna had talked about.

Wedge shrugged. "He didn't really want other people watching him practice either," Wedge said. "He'd only ever had one real lesson at that point, so he didn't think he was very good at it. A lot of times, it was just the two of us tossing ideas around, trying to figure out how to figure out what he could do. It's not like he had anyone he could ask, so he was kind of self conscious about it."

"Oh," Tycho said.

Corran found himself nodding. That all made sense, given what else Wedge had told him just a couple of days ago. Of course Luke wouldn't have been running around showing off what he _couldn't_ do.

"What we found out later," Wedge continued, "much later, after Leia's treasure box was made public, was that the training sequences R2 was using to program remote droids were based on actual lightsaber training modules."

"Where did he get those from?" Iella asked.

"Well, R2 used to belong to Anakin Skywalker, right? During the Clone Wars. Apparently Anakin was also exceptionally good with a lightsaber and created his own training modules, which he uploaded to R2. And of course, R2 has never had a memory wipe. So that's what he used when we asked him to program remote droids."

"That's a bit awkward," Mirax said.

"R2 told us that, after Obi Wan lied to Luke about how Anakin died, and then Obi Wan died, he assumed Luke would have to fight him - Vader, that is. It worked too. After Luke and Leia came back to the fleet from Bespin, Luke told me that those lightsaber training sessions were probably what saved him from not losing anything _more_ than his hand."

"That still can't be a very comfortable thing to learn," Mirax said.

"I don't think Luke has ever been mad at R2 for anything," Wedge said.

"Does Brianna know all that?" Iella asked.

"Oh sure," Cami said. "R2 has been training remote droids for her the same way for fifteen years. She didn't know all that background until everyone else did though. But she loves that kind of stuff. She thinks it's fun."

"Huh," Iella said. "Interesting."

* * *

Back in the main part of Iella's office, Corran dug into the dinner Iella had delivered up from the cafeteria. After Cami had gone through her turn at circle drills and volleying, Brianna had them spar in pairs for a while. It was exhausting, but effective. Brianna may have an ego problem and an authority problem, but she was clever and she could teach. He leaned back in his chair and looked over at Brianna. "Here's a question for you."

"Is it interesting?"

Corran had learned to recognize those kinds of comments as bait, so he ignored it. "We've been practicing with one threat at a time. Can we sense multiple distortions at once?"

Brianna shrugged. "Multitasking is a skill."

Corran heard Iella and Mirax giggle a bit. "Okay, second question."

"Is it interesting?" Brianna asked again, her impish grin getting a bit bigger.

Corran ignored it. "We've been working within a couple of meters of each other. How far out would a distortion have to be before we caught it?"

"Ah, that is a more interesting question," Brianna said. "I suspect it depends on how far out you would push your sensing bubble anyway, since that's what the disruption is interacting with. You might want to keep it a little bit tighter, if you're not good at multitasking. What's optimal is probably some balance between the two answers."

Corran nodded. That made sense. "Okay, third question."

"See, now I expect something even more interesting. Don't regress."

"We know we can sense other people's reactions when they're under threat. And we know we can see the distortion when we're under threat. But can we see the distortion when someone else is under threat?"

"Ah, now that's a _testable_ question," Brianna said. "I like those." Brianna jumped up and grabbed one of the practice sabers. She waved vaguely toward Iella, Mirax, and Tycho. "Pick one of those three."

"What?"

"Pick one of those three."

Corran didn't really want to test anything on them, but before he could protest, Tycho raised his hand. "Can I volunteer?"

"Absolutely, yes you may," Brianna said. She tapped the floor next to her. "Stand right there." Tycho did as he was told. Brianna started walking around him, twirling the saber and shifting it from hand to hand. "The question is, can someone detect the distortion even when the threat is directed elsewhere. Logically, this ought to be true, since we can still detect threats against others under normal circumstances, and this is basically just a modified version of normal circumstances. But, it remains untested."

Corran had become familiar with how Brianna liked to lead into things, so he was fairly certain he knew what was coming. He kept a tight watch on her saber. Sure enough, as she finished talking and came around to Tycho's front, she pivoted swiftly with a hard lateral swing, halting just short of Tycho's torso. He yelped and jumped back.

Brianna straightened up and turned back to Corran. "Well?"

"It works," he said.

"Excellent!"

" _And_ , the distortion comes in sooner, and is distinct from, the reaction."

"That sounds quite logical."

"Multitasking."

"Indeed." Brianna pointed at Cami. "Did you catch it?"

"I did."

She pointed at Jaina. "Did you?"

"I think so."

"Fantastic." She turned back to Tycho. "Thank you for your participation."

"I'm sure I'll be glad I did it when my heart rate comes back down."

Brianna grinned. "You volunteered!"

Tycho sighed. "I know."

Brianna laughed. "You're funny."

Corran shook his head, but he had to smile. At least she was nice to Tycho.

The office door chimed. Iella got up to answer it as Tycho and Brianna sat back down. "Oh, Director Barlon, please, come in," Iella said.

A Duros entered, followed by Deputy Assistant Director Kalick from the Analysis Division. "Good evening Director Wessiri. I trust we're not intruding at a bad moment."

"No, not at all," Iella said. She looked back at the rest of them. "This is Kar Barlon, Assistant Director for Operations," she said. "What can we do for you?"

"We have some plans and information we'd like to share with you." Barlon pointed to the hologram projector on Iella's desk. "May I?"

"Please."

Kalick placed a small disk on the top of the projector and pressed a small button. A holographic map of several nearby sections of Coruscant appeared above the table with dozens of markers in four different colors. "We've been coordinating our analysis with the Starfighter Command intelligence group. We shared with them your theory about a multilayer network, and, you were right." He pointed to the map. "The markers you see here on the map represent network nodes, color coded by layer. The red markers are the top layer we'd already found. The blue, green, and yellow markers are three other layers."

"How can you tell the difference between the top layer and the other layers?" Corran asked.

"Communication patterns," Kalick answered. "It's a bit amateurish, actually. The intra-network patterns for all four layers are almost identical. We've identified the red layer as the top because it's the most active. We've tentatively labeled the blue, green, and yellow layers as second, third, and fourth, respectively because of the inter-network patterns at a subset of nodes in each layer.

"We've identified nodes focused on Starfighter Command, ports, and district security offices, which you've already encountered," Kalick continued. "There are a few additional nodes focused on senate support offices. We're not sure yet where the rest are focused."

"We have a few different courses of action we're considering," Barlon said. "The primary one involves clearing the top layer while leaving the rest intact for monitoring."

"Why?" Corran asked. "Won't they all just go underground once the top layer gets rolled up?"

"That's possible," Kalick said. "The network patterns are all similar and we know what they are, so if they pop up later, we'll spot it much more quickly. And if they don't go underground, that gives us more time to figure out where the rest of the nodes are focused and to see if a new fourth layer emerges."

"How close are you to moving out on this?" Iella asked.

"We haven't gotten course of action approval yet," Barlon said. "We're coordinating with Starfighter Command and other elements where we've identified node focus for additional resource support. What we weren't sure about," he said slowly, "was whether we also needed to coordinate with, how shall I say, Jedi activities? Given the other elements of this that are...outside of our expertise?"

Corran nodded. That made sense. "I think we should -"

Iella held a hand and cut him off. She looked at Brianna. "Do we?"

Brianna's eyes widened, as she clearly hadn't expected such a question. She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not a tactician."

Corran tried again. "I was thinking -"

Iella cut him off again. "Let me ask you this," she said, still addressing Brianna. "Could you actually find the source of this disruption?"

"I...do actually have an idea about that, yeah," Brianna said.

"If you found it, could you dismantle it?"

"I...yeah, probably."

Corran frowned. Brianna was not inspiring confidence here. _Iella, what are you trying to do?_

Iella turned back to Barlon. "Based on our initial reasoning for the multilayer network, and since you only want to roll up the top layer anyway, we shouldn't need to dismantle the disruption before you action the network. In fact, it's probably better if you take action on the network first, though," she glanced back at Brianna, "they shouldn't come _too_ far apart."

"So, concurrent, but not necessarily fully coordinated, is that correct?" Barlon asked.

"Yes, I think so."

"Good. We still need to finish our orders process and coordination so it will be at least another five or six hours before we're ready to move out. We'll let you know."

"Thank you for your diligence on this, both you," Iella said as she escorted them to the door.

"Always a pleasure Director," Barlon said. "Good evening."

Iella closed the door behind them and turned back to the group. "Well," she said, "looks like we're sleeping here again tonight."


	6. Chapter 6

Corran walked into an NRDI Operations briefing room just in time to catch the back end of an argument between Iella and Wedge.

"You're not going," Iella said.

"You're not telling Tycho and Morax they can't go."

"Tycho and Mirax weren't in the hospital six weeks ago."

"I'm going."

"You are not."

Wedge glanced at Corran, who shook his head. "Don't look at me. I know better."

"I'm going," Wedge said again.

Iella waved him off and looked at Brianna, who seemed thoroughly amused by the whole thing. "I guess I should have asked you earlier, but, do you need anything?"

Brianna shrugged and cinched her backpack straps. "I don't know. Nothing fancy, I guess. Jaina maybe."

"Gee thanks," Jaina said.

Brianna at least had the good sense to look slightly embarrassed as she grinned. "That was actually not intentional."

"I can never tell with you," Jaina said as she walked over to Brianna.

Brianna gave her a small shrug and looked back at Iella. "I'll take my fancy cousin."

Iella nodded, looking a bit amused. "Okay. We'll take Corran and Cami with us then."

Corran frowned. "I'm not sure Cami and I should be in the same group."

Iella frowned back at him. "Why not?"

"Because, none of us really know what we're going to find when we get where we're going. Brianna and Jaina have different skill sets from me and Cami. It's better if we spread them out."

"Like what?" Iella asked.

Brianna snorted. "He means he can't lift rocks."

"Unless you need Jaina for something specific," Corran said.

Brianna narrowed her eyes at him, then glanced back and forth between Cami and Jaina. "Okay, fine, you two switch."

Jaina rolled her eyes and Cami shook her head as they swapped sides of the room.

"Are we good now?" Iella asked.

"Check," Brianna said.

"Okay. Time is now zero one hundred. Based on the raiding timeline, we'll be done by zero six hundred. Your job," she pointed at Brianna, "is to be done not earlier than that. If you need help after that, let us know."

"Check."

"Good luck."

Brianna turned to leave and pulled Cami with her. "Hey, don't I get credit for my idea?" Corran said.

Brianna turned back around. "Credit? What do you want, a cookie?" She poked Cami in the shoulder. "Oh, hey, I was gonna make whiskey cookies later, don't let me forget." She turned to leave again. "Zero six, check!"

* * *

Brianna checked her watch as she and Cami walked out of a twenty-four hour coffee shop. Zero two hundred. Four hours to go. They had wandered around a bit before getting coffee. Cami had been uncharacteristically grumpy. "Okay, spit it out," Brianna said as they walked along a catwalk. "What are you mad about?"

"I'm not mad."

"Girl, you lie. What are you mad about?"

"You didn't want me to come."

"Who told you that?"

"You wanted Jaina to come."

"One doesn't necessarily imply the other."

"I caught on to this really well."

"Ah, you did," Brianna said. "In fact, you _and_ your dad caught on faster than Jaina. Pretty interesting."

"So why did you want her to come?"

"Well, I may not be any kind of tactician," Brianna said, "but I figured it might be safer for our non-Force using friends if the two who caught on so well went with them."

"Oh."

"So, are you not mad now?"

"Why did you agree with my dad to switch us then?"

Brianna took a sip of her coffee. "It wasn't that terrible of an idea."

"You weren't going to tell him that, of course."

"No, of course not." Brianna grinned as Cami shot her an annoyed look. "Maybe I'll give him a cookie later."

"You are unbelievable."

"Are you not mad now?"

"I don't know. I'll decide later."

"Fair enough."

Cami shook her head. "What are we even doing out here? You never told anyone what your idea was."

Brianna took another quick sip of her coffee, then turned to face Cami while she walked backwards. "Okay, so, here's my idea, check this out. What is a threat?"

"Can't you just tell me?" Cami said. "Why do we have to go through this ridiculous question and answer session every time?"

"Because it's good learning," Brianna said. "Also, it's fun."

"For who?"

"For _me_. Now, what is a threat? What does it mean for something to be a threat?"

Cami sighed. "It's something that causes harm."

"To what?"

"Me."

"Or?"

"Someone else."

"So, direct or indirect, right?"

"Okay."

"And it could be right now."

"Yeah."

"Or?"

"In the future."

"So, direct or indirect, and current or future, right?"

"Okay. So?"

"Also, big or little, close or far, right? So, these are all _qualities_ of a threat, right? And when you sense a threat under _normal_ circumstances, you can distinguish qualities, right?"

Cami thought for a moment. "Yeah, true."

"So, given that, what should our distortion look like?"

Cami took another sip of coffee. "Well, it's both direct and indirect. It's direct to me, but it's also a threat to others, which would be indirect from my perspective. It's a current threat, but if they fix their problems and reset, it's definitely a future threat. It's certainly going to be bigger than anything else going on. And if someone is monitoring tests, then it's probably close by too."

"Exactly what I was thinking!" Brianna said. "So, all we have to do is find a big distortion that otherwise has all of those qualities. Right?"

Cami looked skeptical. "That's it?"

"You don't like my plan?"

"That's not a plan!" Cami said. "That's barely an idea!"

"You don't like my plan."

Cami sighed. "You're lucky Jaina isn't here. She'd probably bite your head off right now."

"Probably true, didn't really think about that part," Brianna said. "Do you have a better idea?"

"No," Cami grumbled.

"Do think Jaina or your dad would have had a better idea?"

Cami pursed her lips. "No," she admitted. "But you don't even know if that works!"

"Ah, as it happens, I do," Brianna said. "While everyone was sleeping, I went out to get my backpack and tested it out. Turns out, you can distinguish threats that way." She turned Cami around to face northwest and stood behind her. "Stretch out that way. There's probably ten thousand people between us and that building a kilometer away. All kinds of threats going on. A kid about to fall out of bed. Someone about to get mugged. A speeder bike that's going to crash in a few minutes. All relatively small things."

"They aren't small for the people involved," Cami said.

"Well, no," Brianna said. "But if we made it a point to involve ourselves in every little thing just like that, we'd never do anything else. Now, focus. We're looking for something big that's directed at us." Brianna guided Cami's mind out further into the city.

"How am I supposed to know how much bigger this is supposed to - oh. Hello."

"A _lot_ bigger," Brianna said.

Cami looked around at Brianna. "You still don't know if that's actually what we're looking for."

"One way to find out."

Cami looked back out over the city lights. "How far do you think that is?"

"Dunno." Brianna checked her watch. Zero two-thirty. "We've got a minimum of three and half hours to find out. Start walking."

* * *

Corran sat down next to Iella as they waited for the operations officer on their team to let them know it was time to move on their target. "I hope you know what you're doing," he said.

Iella didn't look up from her datapad. "I generally have a better track record for knowing what I'm doing than you," she said. Corran stared at her. She finally looked up. "Oh, sorry, did you have something specific in mind?"

"Yeah, Brianna."

"Oh. In that case, I stand by my assessment."

"You have no idea what she's doing right now."

"You can't be that concerned," Iella said. "You sent Cami with her."

"One, that was a legitimate suggestion," Corran said. "And two, someone with her is better than no one with her."

"So, she's accountable. What's the problem?"

"She's not accountable if we don't know what she's doing."

"You think Cami won't tell us later what happened?"

Corran shifted a bit. "Well, she will. But everyone just lets Brianna get away with stuff. Even Cami."

Iella looked amused. "Yes, I've noticed."

"You're not going to change her."

"Who said I wanted to do that?"

"The last person to try to make her behave like a proper Jedi got harassed off of Yavin."

"Sounds like an unsuccessful venture then."

Corran shook his head. "I don't know what you think you're doing."

"I'm trying to understand her."

"She does things for her personal entertainment and what she thinks benefits her. That's not hard to understand."

"I think you may have short changed her."

"I don't think so. But I hope you're more right than I am."

"I usually am," Iella pointed out.

One of the operations sergeants crouched down next to them. "Director. We're almost ready to go." He checked his watch. "Two minutes."

"Right." Iella put her datapad away. "Let's go."

* * *

Cami and Brianna stood at the level 512 base of a building that went up at least another one hundred floors. "This is...not what I was expecting," Cami said.

"What were you expecting?" Brianna asked.

"I don't know. That we'd be on the lower levels somewhere, the dregs of Coruscant. Isn't that where you'd want to hide something?"

"Maybe the best place to hide is in plain sight," Brianna said. She looked at Cami. "Palpatine one oh one."

"That doesn't make me feel better," Cami said. "How are we supposed to get in here?"

"Maybe there's an air duct around somewhere we can get into."

"Seriously?"

Brianna grinned and raised the pitch of her voice. "They went up through the ventilation shaft!"

"Nobody actually does that."

"Well, I'm definitely not going through a garbage chute," Brianna said. "You want to try the front door?"

"I'd prefer they _didn't_ know we were here," Cami said.

"Maybe they already do."

" _That_ doesn't make me feel better either."

"Okay, fine, you tell me what you want to do."

Cami sighed and looked around. The platform they were on was empty. It wasn't dawn yet, but the pre-dawn light was just starting to come over the horizon. "Ventilation shaaaaft," Brianna whispered.

"All right! Fine. Find one," Cami said.

"Yes! Come on, this way." Brianna led the way around to the east of the building. She checked her watch. Almost zero five thirty. A short walk later Brianna stopped and looked up. "That looks promising." She reached up to start dismantling the grate with the Force.

"That's ten meters up," Cami said.

"So?"

"What if there's an alarm on it?"

Brianna stopped and looked at Cami. "An alarm would constitute a threat, yes?"

"I guess so."

"Is it fuzzy?"

Cami looked up at the grate and then back at Brianna. "It is not," she said.

"Excellent." Brianna detached the grate from the outside and turned it sideways to push it inside. She cinched the straps of her backpack and then jumped, pulling herself up with the Force into the tunnel. She pulled herself inside. It was just tall and wide enough for her to be on her hands and knees. "Good thing I'm small," she muttered. She looked back outside where Cami was waiting. She reached her hand out. "Jump." Cami jumped, but, Halcyon that she was, would never have made it up by herself. Brianna grabbed onto her and pulled her inside.

"Oof. Could have picked a bigger duct," Cami said.

"Fine, I'll let you pick next time," Brianna said. "Let's go." After a short crawl they came to the end and dropped down into a hallway. "Okay Miss 'I'm super good at this'," Brianna said. "Which way?"

Cami glanced up both ends of the hallway. "Left," she said. "Also, there's about twelve more normal-looking distortions around here."

Brianna raised an eyebrow. She'd caught the normal sized distortions too, but hadn't been able to put a number on it. "Lead the way."

Cami led them down the hall and around a corner. The interior hallways were mostly dark, with deep, dull blue lights along the ceiling. Brianna was starting to sense the other distortions more clearly. They weren't as dull as the fake security guards, but nothing as big as the other distortion that led them there. They came up on another intersection and Cami stopped. "I think we need to go left again," she said.

Something else had caught Brianna's attention in the other direction. "Let's go this way," she said.

"Our Star Destroyer-sized distortion is _this_ way," Cami said pointing to the left.

"Yeah, I know, they aren't going to leave without us. Right first," Brianna said. Cami sighed and followed Brianna to the right. Brianna dragged her hand along the wall as she walked. She didn't know exactly what she was sensing. She didn't like not knowing.

Halfway down the hall, there was a recessed door to the left. Brianna waved her hand over the keypad and the door slid open. Inside was a wide open, dark space with a few monitors glowing on the far side, and stacks of crates along another far wall. No one was inside. "Empty room" Cami said. "That's nice."

"Go see what's on that console over there," Brianna said. Cami did as she was told while Brianna walked the edge of the room. She held her hand up along the wall. She stopped, just as the wall switched to a curtain. Brianna glanced behind her to see Cami still at the console. She pulled the curtain back and smiled a bit. "Now _you_ look interesting," she said. A small object, about fifteen centimeters in diameter, rested on a back wire stand. It was slightly luminescent, and a deep burgundy in color. It wasn't quite a sphere; it had several triangle-shaped sides. The sides were smooth and cool.

"Hey B," Cami said, coming up behind her. "What was the name of that group that hijacked my ship?"

"Hm? Vir-Azmun, why?" Brianna said, still looking at the object.

"Oh."

"Why?" Brianna asked again.

"One of the datapads I found on the console," Cami said. "Looks like the people running this operation are called Vir-Shat."

Brianna turned around. "Vir-Shat?"

"Yeah. I'd bet half your candy stash that's not a coincidence," Cami said.

"You're not authorized to bet my candy stash," Brianna said. "Let me see that." Brianna took the pad from Cami and scrolled through the first couple of pages before realizing she wasn't actually paying attention to it. She handed it back to Cami. "Are there any more of these?"

"Yeah, there's a few more over there."

"Good. Go round them up, you can give Iella a present."

"What did you find?" Cami asked.

"Ah," Brianna said. She pulled the object off its stand and held it up between them. "This," she said, "is a holocron."

"I thought holocrons were blue cubes," Cami said.

"Only Jedi holocrons are blue cubes. Sith holocrons," Brianna said, her voice switching to teacher mode, "are red tetrahedrons."

"Oh. Good thing this isn't that. I think."

"Indeed."

"How do you know it's a holocron?" Cami asked.

"It's a perfect solid, see?" Brianna pointed to the sides. "All the sides are the same equilateral polygon. Like, cubes are six squares, tetrahedrons are four triangles, octahedrons are eight triangles, dodecahedrons are ten pentagons. This one has," she counted quickly, "twenty triangles."

"What's it called?"

"I don't know," Brianna mused. "I'll have to look it up. Something fun and nerdy I hope." She reached back and dropped the holocron into her backpack. "Go grab the rest of those datapads and then we'll see if this thing's former owner wants to have a chat with us."

Cami looked over Brianna's shoulder. "Um, I think the former owner just found us."

"Hm?" Brianna turned around. Another person had joined them in the room, a slightly older man with light gray robes and a lightsaber hilt hanging from his belt. He was definitely the source of the distortion.

"I think you have something of mine," he said.

"Oh, really? You don't say," Brianna said.

He reached out his hand. "My holocron."

Brianna stepped past Cami toward the center of the room. "Oh, was that yours?" Brianna said with mock surprise. "It didn't have your name on it, see, so maybe you could enlighten us to that part."

"Charming," he said. "If you don't return my holocron, I shall be obliged to come take it from you."

"Oh good, does that mean I'm going to get a real fight this time? Your fake security dudes were pretty boring."

He raised an eyebrow. "Ah, that was you? How interesting."

_Crap._ Brianna hadn't meant to give something like that away. She reached for her lightsaber and glanced back at Cami. Cami was looking at her, as if waiting for some kind of guidance.

"You seem like a smart girl. I'd very much like to know how you found this place."

_Ha. Flattery doesn't win me that easily._ "Yeah, you know, normally I love to tell people how much they suck at their jobs, but maybe not today." Brianna glanced around the room to see if there was a more convenient way out. Practice sparring in a conference room was one thing; a full on fight without threat perception was something else.

"Unfortunate. We shall have to do this the hard way."

"You're just a walking cliché, aren't you?" Brianna said. She refocused her attention on his lightsaber. It was distinct from his person, and clear in the Force. Until he reached for it, and then right on cue, it became distorted. "Got you," she whispered. She lit her lightsaber just as he lit his, a dark burgundy just like the holocron. Brianna heard Cami's lightsaber snap to life behind her.

He charged at Brianna, striking from the top and sides. He was quicker than how they'd practiced in the conference room, but still slower than Brianna had expected. She struck back. He blocked her, even as he faltered a couple of steps. He stepped back and tried to circle around her. "You have some skill for someone so young," he said.

"Aw, how kind of you," Brianna said. "I expected better from someone of such advanced age."

He snarled and struck again. "You're rather annoying."

"Are you kidding? This is tame. I'm usually way more obnoxious than this." Brianna struck again, trying to figure out what she would do if she actually disarmed him. She couldn't just be snarky all day. As entertaining as that might be.

He blocked, struck, and blocked again, this time side stepping her and reaching out to the far wall. Brianna tried to block again, then whirled around as new distortions came her way. Several crates were flying toward her. She blocked one with a force shield and another with her lightsaber. Behind her, she could hear him start to engage Cami as their lightsabers clashed. "Dirtbag," she muttered.

She threw off the last crate and whipped back around. She saw Cami's lightsaber fly out of her hands and clatter to the floor while she ducked and rolled to the other side. He reached out to bring the lightsaber to him. As it came off the ground, Cami also reached out her hand. _You idiot, you can't do telekinesis,_ Brianna thought. Brianna also tried to grab the lightsaber, but stopped. The man's head turned, as if the lightsaber were suddenly coming from a different direction, a meter to the right. The lightsaber had not changed direction though. He cried out in pain as the lightsaber slammed into the side of his face. Cami dove back in and in one swift movement, rolled up and executed a perfect backwards side slice. Still surprised and in pain from the strike to the face, he tried to block but stumbled forward right into Cami's blade. Both he and his lightsaber collapsed to the ground.

Cami jumped back, eyes wide, with her hand clapped to her mouth. "I didn't mean to do that! I didn't mean to do that! That's not what I meant to do!" she yelled.

Brianna straightened up and disengaged her own lightsaber. "Would you stop panicking?" she said as she walked over. "Your dad's gonna notice."

"I didn't mean to do that!" Cami yelled again.

"Cami, _relax_. If he'd been faster, he would have blocked you. It's not your fault." Brianna poked him with her toe. He was definitely dead. She noticed Cami wasn't the only one panicking. The twelve other distortions they'd noticed earlier were no longer distortions and they were panicking too. Brianna checked her watch. Zero six twenty-eight. "That was a neat trick though," she said.

"Huh?"

"Making him think the lightsaber was coming from elsewhere, Miss Halcyon?"

"Oh that," Cami said, still eyeing the body on the floor. "I thought of that while I was wandering around Formuth looking for Wedge. Wasn't sure if I'd get a chance to try it."

"Well, it worked," Brianna said. "You fixed it. Distortions are gone. And on schedule."

"You can't tell anyone I did that."

"Come on, let's go round up those other datapads and see if anyone else wants to talk to us."

Back out in the hallway, Brianna led the way back in the direction they'd come from. They passed the intersection they'd come though. At the other end of the hall, they turned right. Next to the dusty blue lights along a ceiling, a series of red lights started flashing. " _Now_ someone pulls the intruder alarm," Brianna said.

"Uh, Bri," Cami said, stopping. "I don't think that's the intruder alarm."

Brianna turned around, and then she caught it. "Aw, shhh-"

Cami grabbed her hand. "We gotta get out of here, now!"

"Lame!" Brianna yelled into the air as they started running. Small explosions started going off behind them. They rounded the corner to see a series of explosions coming at them from the other end of the hall.

"We're not going to get out the way we came," Cami said. "Did you see a lift anywhere? Or stairs?"

Brianan looked over her shoulder and spotted a window on the corner wall. "Fastest way out is down," she said.

"What? No, wait, Brianna -"

Brianna blew a whole in the window and then threw up a brief Force shield as the explosions got closer.

"Brianna, don't you dare, AHHH!" Cami started screaming as Brianna Force-pushed her out the window. She shoved some flames back one more time then dove out after her.

It was much lighter outside now and Brianna could see that the ten meter drop she'd been expecting was actually a one hundred meter drop on this side of the building. _Oops. Crap._ Cami was still screaming below her. Brianna reached out and grabbed Cami with the Force to slow her fall as she slowed herself down. Brianna touched down on the catwalk in a light crouch. A second later, Cami landed on her side with a soft thud.

Cami glared up at her. " _Ow._ "

"Sorry," Brianna said. "Misjudged the timing a bit there." She offered Cami a hand.

Cami pushed it away and stood up to brush herself off. She gave Brianna a shove in the chest. "Don't do that to me ever again."

"Sheesh, sorry, I'll let you get blown up next time," Brianna said. She looked up where the floor they had been on was still exploding. Further up in the distance, a small shuttle was taking off from the top of the building. "Well, there go the rest of our friends," she said.

"Great," Cami. "They'll just restart this all over again."

"I don't know. They were pretty panicky," Brianna said. "They might not know how. Besides," she pointed to her backpack, "I have their holocron, remember?"

"Yeah, great."

Brianna shrugged. "Well, I think it's time for coffee and breakfast. What do you think?"

"What? No, we need to get back and report all this!"

"Do what now?"

"Make a report," Cami said. "That's how these things work. You do an operation, you make a report."

"No, that sounds super boring, I'm not doing that," Brianna said. "You do it."

"I'm not in charge of this!" Cami said. She frowned a bit. "Just...don't tell anyone what I did, okay?"

"Why don't _you_ make the report and you can say or not say whatever you want."

"I'm not in charge," Cami said again.

Brianna smirked and crossed her arms. "Okay, fine," Brianna said. "I'll make the report, but I didn't think it was any big deal, so-"

"All right, all right, I'll do it," Cami growled. "Let's go." She turned and started walking back east.

"Can we at least get breakfast first?" Brianna said, following.

"No! We're going."

"Man," Brianna muttered. "I'm hungry."

* * *

Wedge watched Corran pace around the operations briefing room. About forty-five minutes after the last team finished their raid, Corran and Jaina noticed the disruption had disappeared. Back in the briefing room, they sparred for a few minutes to test it, and they were certain it was gone. Jaina left to check into Starfighter Command. Corran had been pacing the room ever since as they waited for Brianna and Cami to come back.

"Corran, would you _please_ sit down?" Iella said. "You're not making anything better."

"This was done almost three hours ago," Corran said. "Where are they?"

"They're probably just on their way back. Please. Sit. Down."

"You'd know if something happened, wouldn't you?" Tycho asked.

" _Yes_ ," Corran said testily. "That's not the point."

"Maybe if you'd calm down, you'd know more," Iella said.

Corran looked annoyed. "Yeah, well, -"

The door whooshed open. "Greetings!" Brianna announced with her arms in the air as they came through the door. "Mission accomplished!"

"Where have you been?!" Corran said.

"Relax, it was a long walk back and we made good time," Brianna said. "Cami wouldn't even let us stop for breakfast."

"I hate you," Cami muttered."

"I'm still hungry, by the way."

"Well, okay," Iella said. "We can get something and then we'll need to debrief you -"

"Excellent!" Brianna put her hands on Cami's shoulders. "Camilla Horn, my second in command, is my designated report-maker. She will be more than happy to tell you anything you want to know." She pushed Cami forward.

Wedge raised an eyebrow. Cami looked distinctly _un_ happy.

"Well, I was hoping you would -" Iella started.

"Nope, can't stay, gotta get back to Yavin, make sure my students didn't run amok without me. Kids, it's been real. If you ever need me for your third choice again, I will be more than happy to oblige." She threw everyone a mock salute and darted out of the room.

There was a second of silence. "She can't just leave!" Corran said.

"You can't make her stay," Cami said.

"Let me try," Wedge said. He stepped out into the hallway and let the door close behind him. "Brianna."

Brianna turned around and waited for him to catch up. "Thank you for coming out," he said.

"Yeah, you know, this was fun. We should do it again some time," Brianna said. Wedge raised an eyebrow. "Well, maybe not this exact scenario," Brianna said. "You know."

"You're not going to stay?" he asked.

"Nah, it's all good, Cami's all over it."

Wedge nodded. He really didn't think she was going to. He glanced back at the door to make sure no one else was coming out. "Corran told me what happened with your dad on the med center platform," he said.

"Oh good," Brianna said. "I was wondering when one of those lazy schmucks would get around to telling you about it."

" _You_ could have told me," Wedge said.

Brianna shrugged. "Eh. I feel like it's better this way."

"I'm going to fix this."

"You've been trying to fix this for ten years," Brianna pointed out.

"It's really going to be fixed this time."

"Cool. What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to not give your dad a hard time.

"I don't."

"Brianna."

"Only when he deserves it."

"Brianna!"

"All right, all right." She shifted her backpack. "What _are_ you going to do?"

Wedge hesitated. "I don't know yet. He's not back for another few days. I'll think of something."

Brianna nodded and shrugged. "Cool. You let me know what you need."

Wedge sighed. "You're not going to stay?"

"Heck no, I'm getting breakfast."

Wedge sighed again. "All right. I'll talk to you soon then."

Brianna threw him another mock salute, and walked away.

* * *

Epilogue:

Back in her room in the main temple at Yavin, Brianna sat down at her desk. She pulled the stolen holocron out of her backpack. She pulled out her pocket communicator, connected to the Holonet, and typed into the search field: twenty sides, all triangles, shape name. The first return gave her an answer. "Icosahedron," she said out loud. "One of five types of perfect polyhedra where all the faces are the same type of regular polygon and the same number of polygons meet at each vertex." She turned the object around in her hand. "Pretentious and nerdy!" she said. "My kind of people.

"Let's see if you open like any other holocron." She set it on the desk and slowly moved her hand over the top, summoning the Force to expand the object. An inner concentric triangle at the top rose into the air and a holographic image of a robed Devaronian appeared.

"I am Master Jer'peth, keeper of this holocron and its secrets," the Devaronian said. "State your name and the nature of the information you seek."

Brianna regarded him silently for a moment. Jer'peth wasn't a name she had come across in any Jedi history she'd read. "Just Brianna will do, please and thank you," she said. "Are you a Jedi?"

"I am not," Jer'peth said. "Are you?"

"Would that be a problem?" Brianna asked.

Master Jer'peth tilted his head at her. "That depends what you want to know."

Brianna nodded. "And what if I want to know about threat perception manipulation in the Force?"

Jer'peth raised his chin, and narrowed his eyes at Brianna. "I do not believe," he said, "that you have the authority or foreknowledge to be allowed access to that content."

Brianna smiled. Step one. Find out what content exists. She leaned down to be eye-level with her gatekeeper. "Challenge accepted."

Coming soon - Book 4: Homecoming


End file.
